Chapter 5 - The Fourth Woman
"That's impossible."
The words came out before I could stop them.
"Richard is married to Margaret."
Rebecca Vale studied me carefully.
"Yes."
"Margaret has been his wife for more than forty years."
"Publicly."
I shook my head.
"Then who was Anna?"
Rebecca slid a second document across the diner table.
It was a faded marriage certificate issued in Vermont seventeen years earlier.
The groom's name was Richard Arthur Whitmore.
The bride's name was Anna Catherine Bell.
My stomach twisted.
"This could be fake."
"It could," Samuel said.
"Rebecca brought it to us because we need to verify it."
I looked at him.
"And you think it's real?"
"I think it's important enough to investigate."
Elena touched the edge of the photograph.
"Anna used Catherine's middle name."
I looked at her.
"You knew her."
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you tell me my mother had a sister?"
"Because I didn't know she was your mother's sister until much later."
Rebecca frowned.
"What did you think she was?"
"A business associate."
I studied the photograph again.
My mother stood beside Anna in matching dark coats.
Their resemblance was undeniable.
But there was something different about Anna's expression.
Her smile was too controlled.
As if she were imitating the woman beside her.
"Why would Richard marry her?"
Samuel looked at the certificate.
"If the marriage was valid, it could have given Anna a claim to certain assets or created complications for Richard's first marriage."
"Or it could have been part of a fraud."
Rebecca nodded.
"My father believed Anna had been using Catherine's identity in financial transactions."
A cold sensation spread through my chest.
"Using her identity?"
"Signing documents."
"Opening accounts?"
"Possibly."
I remembered the burned car.
The closed coffin.
The death certificate.
The years of silence.
"What if the body wasn't a stranger?"
Elena looked at me.
"What do you mean?"
"What if someone else died in that car?"
Nobody answered.
I stared at Anna's face.
"What if they declared my mother dead because they needed her identity?"
Samuel leaned back.
"That's a possibility."
"And what happened to Anna?"
Rebecca swallowed.
"She disappeared six months after the accident."
My blood ran cold.
"Disappeared?"
"No bank activity under that name. No confirmed public records after the last transaction my father identified."
Elena shook her head.
"Richard told everyone she'd gone overseas."
"Did you believe him?"
"No."
Rebecca took out a third document.
A recent photograph.
It showed a woman stepping out of a private medical transport vehicle.
She wore a dark coat and sunglasses.
Her hair was silver.
Her features were difficult to distinguish.
But the profile was familiar.
Too familiar.
My breath caught.
"That's my mother."
Rebecca hesitated.
"Maybe."
"Where was it taken?"
"Outside Blackthorn House."
"When?"
"Nine days ago."
I gripped the edge of the table.
"Then she's still there."
Rebecca shook her head.
"Look at the person beside her."
I leaned closer.
A younger man wearing a charcoal suit was helping the woman into the vehicle.
His face was partly turned toward the camera.
But I recognized his posture.
His haircut.
The expensive watch on his wrist.
Daniel.
My husband.
I pressed my hand against my mouth.
"He's been visiting her."
Rebecca nodded.
"Three times in the past month."
I stared at the photograph.
"Why?"
Samuel looked at the original trust amendment.
"Because he needs something she has."
The emerald.
The archive.
My thirty-fifth birthday.
The documents I'd refused to sign.
I looked at Elena.
"Daniel already knew where my mother was."
Her face tightened.
"Yes."
"Before the anniversary party?"
"Yes."
"Before he married me?"
A long silence followed.
Finally, Elena whispered, "I believe so."
I felt as though the room were spinning.
For eight years, I'd begged Daniel to let me talk about my mother.
He'd held me during anniversaries of her death.
He'd watched me cry on Mother's Day.
He'd kissed my forehead while I told him how much I missed her.
And all that time, he'd known.
I stood so quickly the table shook.
Rebecca reached toward me.
"Evelyn."
"Don't."
I stumbled toward the diner restroom.
Locked myself inside.
And finally broke.
I slid down against the door.
My sobs echoed against the tiled walls.
Not because Daniel had chosen another woman.
Not because he'd humiliated me.
Because he'd listened to me mourn a woman he knew was breathing somewhere.
He'd watched me grieve.
And he'd done nothing.
When I returned to the booth, Samuel had received another call.
Natalie was on speaker.
"The police have identified the man who fired the first shot."
Everyone went silent.
"Who?"
"His name is Patrick Shaw. He worked private security for a subsidiary of Whitmore Capital."
I remembered the figure on the staircase.
"Is he in custody?"
"No."
"Then how do they know?"
"They recovered security footage from an independent camera outside the ballroom."
"Richard controls the house."
"Not that camera."
Natalie paused.
"The catering company installed its own temporary equipment after several expensive items disappeared during an earlier event."
I looked at Elena.
She gave a small nod.
"That camera would have covered the service corridor too."
Natalie continued.
"The footage shows Shaw entering the upper gallery carrying a weapon."
"Was Daniel with him?"
"Not in that recording."
I closed my eyes.
"Then maybe we can't prove Daniel was involved."
"There's more."
Natalie's voice hardened.
"Shaw's phone records show repeated calls to a number registered through a shell company connected to Daniel."
The diner seemed to fall silent around us.
"Can the police arrest him?"
"They're investigating."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only accurate one I can give you."
I looked at the photograph of Daniel outside Blackthorn.
"Then what are we going to do?"
Natalie took a breath.
"We're going to preserve the evidence, provide it to investigators, and keep you somewhere safe."
"While my mother stays locked inside that place?"
"I understand why that's unbearable."
"No."
My voice shook.
"You can't understand."
Rebecca reached across the table.
"My father is there too."
I looked at her.
She swallowed.
"I've spent five years watching him become smaller every time I visit."
Her hands trembled.
"I know what it's like to see someone you love disappear while they're still alive."
I sat down.
For the first time, I wasn't alone in my anger.
Rebecca placed her hand over mine.
"Let's get them both out."
We drove to Boston that afternoon.
Rebecca had arranged a meeting with Dr. Miriam Foster, a former Blackthorn physician who'd resigned seven years earlier.
She had refused to speak to reporters.
But she agreed to meet when Rebecca mentioned my mother's name.
We found her in a small house outside Cambridge.
She was in her sixties, with short gray hair and an exhausted expression.
When she opened the door and saw me, she went completely still.
"Catherine?"
I swallowed.
"No."
Her eyes filled.
"Evelyn."
I nodded.
She covered her mouth.
"Oh, my God."
We sat in her kitchen.
She made tea nobody drank.
I showed her the photograph from nine days earlier.
"Is this my mother?"
Miriam examined it.
Her hands began to shake.
"Yes."
"Is she alive?"
"She was when I last saw her."
"When?"
"Six weeks ago."
I gripped my cup.
"Why were you there?"
"Blackthorn asked me to consult on an unusual medication case."
"Did she recognize you?"
Miriam nodded.
"Immediately."
My throat tightened.
"Can she speak?"
"Yes."
"Can she walk?"
"With assistance."
"Does she know who she is?"
Miriam looked at me.
"Your mother remembers everything."
I covered my mouth.
Everything.
The accident.
The betrayal.
My childhood.
Seventeen years.
"Then why hasn't she escaped?"
Miriam's expression darkened.
"Because Catherine isn't the only person being kept there."
I stared at her.
"What do you mean?"
Miriam leaned forward.
"There's someone else in the private wing."
"Who?"
"A woman who was admitted under the name Anna Bell."
My blood turned cold.
"Anna is alive?"
Miriam hesitated.
"She's alive."
I thought of the photograph.
The resemblance.
The marriage certificate.
"Are they both being held?"
Miriam shook her head slowly.
"That is what makes this complicated."
"What?"
She looked straight at me.
"Anna isn't Catherine's fellow prisoner."
May you like
Her voice dropped.
"She's the person who has been signing the orders to keep Catherine there."
