Chapter 4 - The Bride Who Knew Too Much
Arthur reached the street as the car accelerated.
“Silas!”
The black sedan disappeared around the corner.
Wyatt came running.
Arthur pointed.
“Track it.”
Three vehicles left within seconds.
Arthur turned back toward Beatrice.
She had followed him outside.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew Silas was involved.”
“I knew my father met someone from your family.”
“Which family member?”
“I never saw his face.”
Arthur studied her.
Beatrice had lied at the altar.
But not every frightened person was an enemy.
Some were prisoners with expensive clothes.
“Why marry me?”
“My father told me I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
She smiled sadly.
“Men like you say that because nobody has ever owned your choices.”
Arthur almost answered.
Then he remembered Kora.
Five years stolen.
Perhaps Beatrice understood captivity better than he wanted to admit.
His phone rang.
Wyatt.
“We found the car.”
“Where?”
“Pier Nine.”
“And Kora?”
“Gone.”
Arthur drove there himself.
Silas’s sedan had been abandoned beside a warehouse.
Blood marked the back seat.
Not much.
Enough.
Arthur found Kora’s gray coat on the floor.
Inside its pocket was a torn photograph.
Arthur recognized himself at seventeen.
Beside him stood his father.
Behind them was a shipping warehouse.
On the photograph’s reverse, Kora had written:
17-4-9.
Beatrice stared at the numbers.
Arthur noticed.
“What?”
“My father uses number sequences.”
“For what?”
“Storage vaults.”
Arthur looked at her.
“Seventeen. Four. Nine.”
“Pier Seventeen. Warehouse Four. Locker Nine.”
Arthur called Wyatt.
They reached Pier Seventeen twenty minutes later.
Warehouse Four appeared abandoned.
Locker Nine was hidden beneath an office floor.
Inside they found no ledger.
They found videotapes.
Dozens.
Each labeled with dates.
One was dated five years earlier.
The night Kora supposedly died.
Arthur inserted it into an old security player.
The screen flickered.
Kora appeared.
Unconscious.
Two men carried her through a hospital service corridor.
One was Elias Miller.
The other—
Arthur leaned closer.
Conrad Whitmore.
Beatrice covered her mouth.
“My father.”
The footage continued.
A third man entered frame.
Silas.
All three stood over Kora.
Then someone else walked into view.
A woman.
Arthur stopped breathing.
His mother.
Evelyn Pendleton.
Alive.
On the recording, Evelyn looked directly toward the security camera.
Then she pointed at Kora.
Silas seemed to argue.
Elias struck him.
Conrad ordered something.
There was no audio.
Arthur watched his mother remove a necklace from Kora.
The necklace later found in the burned car.
Arthur stepped away.
Beatrice whispered, “Arthur…”
He raised a hand.
He needed silence.
Twenty-two years ago, he had watched his mother’s coffin lowered into the ground.
Five years ago, Kora’s.
Two women.
Two closed coffins.
Two lies.
Wyatt entered.
“Arthur.”
Arthur pointed toward the screen.
Wyatt saw his father.
His face hardened.
“I'll kill him.”
“No.”
Wyatt looked at Arthur.
“Not until he talks.”
Beatrice suddenly moved toward another shelf.
“There.”
A tape bore tomorrow’s date.
Impossible.
Arthur picked it up.
There was a note beneath it.
PLAY ME LAST.
He played it first.
A man sat before the camera.
Silas.
The recording had been made recently.
“If you're watching this, Arthur, the wedding failed.”
Silas looked exhausted.
“I helped take Kora five years ago.”
Arthur’s fists tightened.
“But I did it because the alternative was her death.”
Silas looked off-camera.
“Conrad wanted her killed. Elias wanted information. Evelyn wanted something else.”
Arthur leaned closer.
“Kora discovered the truth about your father's death.”
Silas swallowed.
“Your father did not die from heart failure.”
Arthur’s chest tightened.
“He was murdered because he built the vault.”
Beatrice whispered, “Oh my God.”
Silas continued.
“The vault contains enough evidence to destroy every family involved, including yours.”
The recording crackled.
“And Kora knows how to open it because your father gave the final key to someone he trusted more than any Pendleton.”
Arthur already knew.
“My mother.”
Silas nodded on-screen as though answering him.
“Evelyn.”
Then his expression changed.
“But Arthur, understand this before you find her.”
A pause.
“Your mother isn't the prisoner.”
The screen went black.
Arthur stared at his reflection.
Behind him, Beatrice suddenly gasped.
She was holding another photograph.
Arthur turned.
The picture showed Conrad, Elias, Silas, Evelyn—
and Kora.
The timestamp was from two years ago.
Kora wasn't restrained.
She was smiling.
Arthur felt the floor disappear beneath him.
Then a phone inside Locker Nine began ringing.
Nobody had noticed it before.
Arthur answered.
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
Then a damaged female voice whispered his name.
“Arthur.”
He knew that voice.
Kora had spoken.
May you like
And the next words she forced through her ruined throat were:
“Don't trust the photograph. Come alone. Your mother is waiting...”
