Chapter 6 - The Footprints in the Snow
I ran before anyone could stop me.
“Oliver!”
Snow struck my face.
The world beyond the mansion lights had become white and violent.
Adrian caught up beside me.
“Claire!”
“Oliver!”
The helicopter sat fifty yards away.
Dark.
Still.
The prints continued toward it.
I could hear people shouting behind us.
Samuel.
Natalie.
Margaret calling security.
Adrian reached the helicopter first.
The cabin door was open.
My heart stopped.
“Oliver!”
A small head appeared from behind the landing skid.
“Mom?”
I nearly collapsed.
I crossed the distance and pulled him against me.
“What were you doing?”
He looked startled by my reaction.
“I saw someone outside.”
Adrian crouched.
“Who?”
“A man.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know.”
Oliver pointed toward the far service road.
“He was by the helicopter.”
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Talk to you?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
Oliver’s teeth chattered.
“He dropped something.”
Adrian removed his coat and wrapped it around him.
“Where?”
Oliver pointed beneath the helicopter.
A small metal object lay half-covered in snow.
I started toward it.
Adrian grabbed my arm.
“Don’t.”
He was right.
Evidence.
Security arrived with flashlights.
One guard escorted Oliver inside.
I refused to leave until the police arrived ten minutes later.
They recovered the object.
A utility knife.
The blade carried a thin residue of aviation fuel.
The security cameras had captured a figure near the helicopter shortly before the storm intensified.
Male.
Heavy coat.
Face obscured.
But the cameras also showed something else.
A vehicle leaving the service entrance.
Registered to Marcus Dane.
Marcus stared at the image.
“That is not possible.”
The detective, Lena Brooks, looked at him.
“Is that your vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“My driver.”
“Where is he?”
Marcus turned toward the doorway.
His face changed.
“I don’t know.”
The driver had disappeared.
His name was Colin Reeves.
He had worked for Marcus for six years.
No criminal history.
No apparent connection to me.
Except one.
When Detective Brooks searched employment records, Colin had previously worked for a security contractor retained by Vale Meridian.
Adrian swore.
Marcus sat down hard.
“This makes no sense.”
The detective disagreed.
“It usually does eventually.”
The children were upstairs now.
All four.
Natalie remained with them.
I had checked twice.
Then three times.
Oliver apologized repeatedly.
I told him there was nothing to apologize for.
Children investigate mysteries.
Adults create them.
Daniel arrived by road after midnight.
The storm had closed the airspace, but roads remained barely passable.
When he stepped into the foyer, Adrian’s expression became unreadable.
Daniel walked straight to me.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“The kids?”
“Upstairs.”
He hugged me.
Not romantically.
But not distantly either.
Adrian looked away.
I noticed.
I hated that I noticed.
Daniel was forty-three.
Steady.
Kind.
Widowed.
He had a teenage daughter studying abroad.
He knew how to be present without demanding space.
After everything Adrian had been, Daniel represented a kind of peace I had once considered impossible.
He glanced toward Adrian.
“So you’re him.”
Adrian met his gaze.
“I suppose I am.”
Daniel nodded once.
“I’ve heard very little.”
Adrian looked surprised.
“Really?”
“Claire doesn’t spend much time talking about people who left.”
That landed.
Daniel did not say it cruelly.
That made it sharper.
Detective Brooks interrupted.
“We found the driver.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?”
“Three miles down the mountain.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief.
Then confusion.
“He claims someone stole Mr. Dane’s vehicle while he was inside a gas station.”
Marcus frowned.
“That still doesn’t explain why my car was here.”
“No.”
Brooks looked at him.
“But it means whoever drove it wanted us to think it was connected to you.”
Marcus went pale.
“Who?”
“That is what I intend to determine.”
She requested access to every guest’s phone records and security logs.
Christmas dinner had officially become a criminal investigation.
At two in the morning, I sat alone in the old library.
Or I thought I was alone.
Adrian entered carrying two cups.
“Tea.”
I looked at him.
“You remembered?”
“You always hated coffee after midnight.”
Eight years.
Some memories survive because nobody asks them to.
I accepted the cup.
“Thank you.”
He sat across from me.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
Finally he said, “I need to apologize.”
“For which year?”
He almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Then his face became serious.
“I invited you because I wanted to win.”
I waited.
“I saw articles about you. EverNorth. Awards. Growth. I knew you were successful.”
“Then why did you think I had failed?”
“Because I was arrogant enough to define success using the thing I thought you didn’t have.”
“Children.”
“Yes.”
He looked ashamed.
“My mother told me you never remarried and never had children.”
“So you decided to parade that in front of everyone.”
“Yes.”
The admission disgusted him.
At least I thought it did.
“Why?”
He looked at the tea.
“Because every article about you made me feel smaller.”
I stared.
“You had a company worth nearly a billion dollars.”
“I know.”
“Then why care what I was doing?”
“Because yours was yours.”
The answer silenced me.
He continued.
“I inherited contacts. Capital. A name. Apparently even the original structure of Meridian came from you and my father. You built EverNorth with four babies and no one.”
“I had people.”
“Not me.”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“And every time I saw your name, I knew that.”
I studied him.
“So Christmas dinner was punishment.”
“Yes.”
“For surviving.”
“Yes.”
He looked up.
“I am ashamed of that.”
“You should be.”
“I am.”
Silence.
Then he said, “I won’t fight you over the founder shares.”
“I haven’t asked for them.”
“They’re yours.”
“That hasn’t been legally determined.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
He shook his head.
“No. For once, I should care about the thing before the money.”
I hated that he was becoming easier to understand.
Forgiveness is simpler when the person asking for it remains awful.
Adrian was not asking.
That made it worse.
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Do they have middle names?”
“The children?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
“What are they?”
I hesitated.
“Ethan James.”
He smiled faintly.
“My grandfather was James.”
“I know.”
His eyes lifted.
“You named him after my grandfather?”
“I liked your grandfather.”
“Oliver Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Samuel Pierce?”
I laughed despite myself.
“No. My uncle.”
“Lily?”
“Lily Anne.”
“My mother’s middle name is Anne.”
“I know.”
His face broke a little.
“And Sophie?”
“Sophie Claire.”
He looked at me.
“You gave one your name.”
“Lily insisted when Sophie complained everyone else had a family name.”
He smiled.
A real one.
Then it faded.
“I missed all of it.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how to live with that.”
“You do not make the children responsible for easing your guilt.”
“I won’t.”
“If they want nothing from you, you accept it.”
“Yes.”
“If they want to know you slowly, you do it slowly.”
“Yes.”
“No gifts to buy affection.”
“Yes.”
“No lawyers.”
“Yes.”
“No demanding holidays.”
“Yes.”
“No deciding you’re their father because biology says so.”
His voice broke.
“Yes.”
I looked at him.
“You understand?”
“I have never understood anything more clearly.”
Before I could answer, Detective Brooks entered.
“We found something.”
She placed a tablet on the table.
Security footage.
A different camera.
The figure near the helicopter had passed beneath an exterior light.
Brooks froze the frame.
A partial face.
Older man.
Gray beard.
Adrian leaned closer.
“I know him.”
“Who?”
“Victor Hale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Daniel, entering behind Brooks, stopped cold.
“It means something to me.”
We all turned.
Daniel stared at the image.
“Victor Hale was chief financial officer at Northline Aviation before I fired him.”
I stood.
“Why did you fire him?”
“For falsifying maintenance invoices.”
Brooks looked between us.
“Why would he target Claire?”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Because EverNorth’s aviation contract replaced the vendor he was taking kickbacks from.”
Adrian frowned.
“So this isn’t about my family?”
“Maybe not.”
Brooks enlarged the image.
Then Daniel noticed something.
“Wait.”
He pointed toward Victor’s wrist.
A silver watch.
Engraved.
Adrian went still.
“What?”
He stepped closer.
“My father owned that watch.”
Margaret had entered behind us.
When she saw the screen, the color disappeared from her face.
“Victor.”
Her voice was almost inaudible.
Adrian turned.
“You know him.”
Margaret grabbed the back of a chair.
“Yes.”
“How?”
She looked at me.
Then at the children’s ceiling above us.
May you like
And whispered the sentence that changed everything again.
“Victor Hale is Adrian’s half-brother.”
