Chapter 3 - The Photograph David Should Never Have Seen
The woman reached toward Blaire.
Luca stopped her.
“Don’t.”
She froze.
“Luca—”
“Who are you?”
Blaire demanded the answer before he could.
The woman looked at her.
“Margaret Sterling.”
Luca’s aunt.
Former chief counsel of Sterling Global.
And, according to Luca, the only person still alive who had worked directly with his father during the years Eleanor Hale’s name appeared in the company files.
Margaret sat across from Blaire thirty minutes later.
Fiona colored beside Luca.
Blaire kept Bunny in her lap.
“My mother was a nurse,” Blaire said. “She lived in Illinois. She never worked for Sterling.”
“She didn’t work for us.”
Margaret’s voice shook.
“She worked for Luca’s father.”
Luca looked up.
“In what capacity?”
“Private caregiver.”
Margaret explained that twenty-seven years earlier, Luca’s father, Sebastian Sterling, had suffered a cardiac event that the company concealed from the public.
Eleanor had cared for him privately for almost a year.
Sebastian trusted her.
Perhaps too much.
“What happened?” Blaire asked.
“He discovered money disappearing from a charitable fund.”
“The foundation?”
Margaret nodded.
“Millions.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Who stole it?”
“I never knew.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Your father refused to tell me.”
Margaret looked toward Bunny.
“He said Eleanor had the evidence.”
Blaire felt sick.
“Why would my mother keep it?”
“Because Sebastian became afraid someone inside the family was responsible.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“My family.”
“Yes.”
Blaire remembered David’s words.
Ask her mother what she stole from your family.
“He married me because of her.”
Nobody answered.
She stood.
“David married me because of my mother.”
“Blaire—”
“Say it.”
Margaret lowered her eyes.
“It’s possible.”
Five years.
Birthdays.
Christmas mornings.
Fiona’s birth.
David crying when he first held their daughter.
Had all of it been an assignment?
Blaire turned away because she refused to let them watch her break.
Luca followed her into the hallway.
“Don’t tell me you’re sorry.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“I was going to tell you that whatever David’s original reason for meeting you was, five years cannot be reduced to a personnel file.”
She looked at him.
“You’re defending him?”
“No. I’m defending you from believing every memory you have was fake before you know that.”
It was infuriatingly kind.
That made it worse.
Later, technicians examined the memory card.
Encrypted.
They needed time.
Blaire wanted to leave.
Luca refused to tell her she could not.
Instead, he showed her the security report from Megan’s apartment.
Two men had entered.
One had previously worked for a private investigation company contracted by David.
Blaire stayed.
That evening, Fiona fell asleep on a sofa in Luca’s private office.
Blaire stood at the window.
“You knew my name on the plane.”
Luca did not lie.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because Sterling is not rare enough to accuse a stranger of being connected to a twenty-six-year-old scandal.”
“But you recognized the rabbit.”
“The tag.”
“You still said nothing.”
“I wasn’t certain.”
She turned.
“And now?”
“Now I’m certain someone is frightened of what your mother left behind.”
Blaire studied him.
“Why were people filming you?”
Luca looked away.
“Different problem.”
“Try me.”
“My board is voting on a merger. My private life has become useful ammunition.”
“Do you have one?”
“A private life?”
She nodded.
“Not much of one.”
For the first time, he smiled.
Then his security chief entered.
“We cracked part of the card.”
A photograph appeared on the wall monitor.
Eleanor Hale stood beside Sebastian Sterling.
Between them was a younger Margaret.
On the table lay stacks of financial documents.
Then another photograph.
David.
Much younger.
Watching Eleanor from across a street.
Blaire covered her mouth.
Timestamp: six years ago.
A year before she met him.
Another image appeared.
David entering the café where he would later claim he had first seen Blaire by coincidence.
Three days before their “first meeting.”
Blaire stopped breathing.
Then the final recovered photograph appeared.
It had been taken in a hospital.
Blaire lay asleep after Fiona’s birth.
David stood beside the bassinet.
In his hand was Bunny.
He had opened the silver tag.
He had known.
The photograph should have destroyed every doubt.
Instead, Luca enlarged it.
“Wait.”
In the reflection of the hospital window stood another person.
Watching David.
A woman.
Margaret gasped.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who is she?” Blaire whispered.
Margaret stepped closer.
Her face went white.
“Eleanor.”
Blaire stared at the image of her mother.
Her mother who had supposedly died eleven months before Fiona was born.
Then Luca’s technician spoke from behind them.
“There’s a video attached to this photograph.”
The screen went black.
May you like
A woman’s voice began.
“Blaire, if you’re watching this, then David found the rabbit…”
