Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
The gray-haired woman introduced herself as Margaret Shaw.
For twenty-two years, she had served as Augustus Vale's private secretary.
According to the Vale family's official records, Margaret had died twelve years earlier.
Damian knew that because he had attended her funeral.
So had Vivian.
Yet Margaret stood beneath the ballroom chandeliers, alive.
“You buried an empty coffin,” she said.
Damian stared at her.
“Why?”
“Because your father needed the world to believe I was dead.”
Elena moved closer.
“You sent those messages?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Margaret's expression tightened.
“That is why we need to leave.”
Damian laughed once without humor.
“Nobody is leaving until somebody explains why my dead father's dead secretary just walked into my gala.”
Margaret looked toward the guests.
Phones were everywhere.
“This room isn't safe.”
Damian lowered his voice.
“My security controls every entrance.”
“Your security chief worked for your father.”
Damian's face changed.
Margaret looked at Elena.
“And whoever sent those messages knows you're here.”
Vivian stepped beside her.
“You promised never to come back.”
“I promised Augustus.”
“He's dead.”
“Yes.”
Margaret looked at Elena.
“Which is why people are getting nervous.”
They moved into a private conference room behind the ballroom.
Damian ordered security to keep everyone else out.
Inside were Elena, Damian, Vivian, Theodore and Margaret.
The envelope lay in the center of the table.
Elena wanted answers.
Instead, she got another secret.
Isabel Marlow had worked for Augustus Vale.
Not as a housekeeper.
As an accountant.
“She discovered money disappearing from one of the family trusts,” Margaret explained.
“How much?”
“Initially? Eleven million dollars.”
Damian frowned.
“Initially?”
“By the time she disappeared, nearly eighty million.”
Vivian closed her eyes.
Damian looked at her.
“You knew?”
“Some of it.”
“Some?”
“I knew Father had accounts he didn't want audited.”
“That's called fraud.”
“He told me it was private family business.”
Margaret looked at Elena.
“Your mother didn't believe him.”
Elena stared at the letter.
“So she threatened to expose him?”
“Yes.”
“And then she disappeared.”
Nobody answered.
Elena's voice hardened.
“Did Augustus kill my mother?”
“No,” Margaret said.
The answer came too quickly.
“Then who did?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I helped Isabel escape that night.”
Silence.
Elena gripped the edge of the table.
“Escape?”
Margaret nodded.
“Your mother knew someone was following her. She came to the East Seventy-Third Street townhouse because Augustus had promised to help.”
“Why would he help the woman exposing him?”
“Because she wasn't exposing Augustus.”
Damian looked up.
“Then who?”
Margaret turned toward Vivian.
Vivian went pale.
“No.”
Damian stared at his sister.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Vivian.”
“I didn't steal anything.”
“Then why are you terrified?”
Vivian looked at Elena.
“Because the money wasn't the secret.”
Theodore interrupted.
“We need to stop.”
Elena slammed her palm against the table.
“No.”
Everyone froze.
“For fifteen years, people told me my mother was dead. I spent birthdays wondering whether she was cold at the bottom of a river. I spent Christmases staring at an empty chair. I buried a woman without a body because adults with money and lawyers told me there was nothing left to find.”
Her eyes moved from face to face.
“So nobody gets to tell me to stop.”
Theodore sat down.
Margaret reached for Elena's hand.
Elena pulled away.
“Where did my mother go?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Pennsylvania.”
Elena's heart pounded.
“You knew?”
“For a while.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
“Six months?”
Elena's voice cracked.
“She was alive for six months and never called me?”
“She wanted to.”
“Then why didn't she?”
“Because someone threatened you.”
Elena stopped.
Margaret explained.
A photograph had been delivered to Isabel's hiding place.
Thirteen-year-old Elena leaving school.
A red circle drawn around her face.
Isabel understood.
Come home, and Elena dies.
“So she stayed away,” Margaret said.
Elena's eyes burned.
“Where did she go after Pennsylvania?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that too?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she disappeared from me next.”
Damian walked toward the window.
“What does any of this have to do with Elena's father?”
Margaret looked at the envelope.
“The second page.”
Elena unfolded it.
The handwriting changed halfway down.
Isabel had written:
Augustus, if something happens to me, Elena must eventually know the truth about Daniel.
Elena looked up.
“Daniel who?”
Margaret didn't answer.
Damian did.
“Daniel Vale.”
Elena turned.
Damian's voice was barely audible.
“My older brother.”
Elena had heard the name.
Everyone had.
Daniel Vale had been Augustus's eldest son.
Brilliant.
Reckless.
Beloved.
He had died in a boating accident fifteen years earlier.
Three weeks before Isabel disappeared.
Elena's stomach tightened.
“No.”
Vivian began crying silently.
Damian stared at Elena.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“And Daniel died fifteen years ago.”
Elena understood the arithmetic.
Daniel would have been thirty-one when she was born.
Margaret nodded.
“Daniel Vale was your father.”
Elena sat down.
The world became distant.
Her mother had spent thirteen years refusing to name him.
Then Daniel died.
Then Isabel disappeared.
Damian stared at Elena.
That made her his niece.
Vivian's niece.
Augustus's granddaughter.
And suddenly the letter made sense.
I cannot keep pretending Elena doesn't belong to your family.
Elena looked at Damian.
The arrogance was gone.
He looked stunned.
“You knew nothing?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She believed him.
Vivian was another matter.
Elena turned.
“You knew.”
Vivian wiped her cheek.
“I knew Daniel loved someone named Isabel.”
“Did you know about me?”
“Not until the night Daniel died.”
“What happened that night?”
Vivian looked at Theodore.
The attorney shook his head.
“Tell her,” Elena said.
Vivian inhaled.
“Daniel didn't die in an accident.”
Damian turned slowly.
“What?”
“He was trying to expose the stolen money.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Vivian continued.
“He called me from the marina. He said he had proof. He said if anything happened, I should find Isabel.”
Damian's voice dropped.
“And you never told me?”
“Father made me swear.”
“Father?”
“He said Daniel was unstable. He said exposing the truth would destroy the company.”
Damian stepped back.
“You protected the company?”
“I was twenty-five!”
“And Daniel was our brother!”
Vivian flinched.
Elena looked at Margaret.
“Who stole the money?”
Margaret reached into her purse.
She removed a small brass key.
“Isabel found the answer.”
“Where?”
“Inside a safe-deposit box.”
“Where's the box?”
Margaret slid the key across the table.
“Your mother left instructions that only you could open it.”
Elena picked it up.
Stamped into the metal were three numbers.
“Which bank?”
Margaret shook her head.
“Not a bank.”
“Then what?”
Before she could answer, the lights went out.
Complete darkness swallowed the room.
Someone screamed in the ballroom.
Glass shattered.
Damian shouted for security.
Elena felt a hand seize her shoulder.
She swung blindly and broke free.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Margaret was gone.
The conference-room door stood open.
Theodore looked beneath the table.
Something had been left behind.
Margaret's purse.
Her phone.
And a thin trail of blood leading toward the service corridor.
Elena grabbed the brass key.
Then Margaret's phone lit up.
A new message appeared.
It contained a photograph taken only seconds earlier.
Margaret being forced into a black SUV.
May you like
Below it were five words.
BRING KEY 417 OR SHE DIES.
