Chapter 3 - The Story of the Runaway Bride
By sunrise, Blackwood House was no longer a home.
It was a crime scene.
Police vehicles lined the circular drive.
Yellow tape crossed the west entrance.
News vans gathered beyond the gate after someone leaked that Evelyn Mercer—still legally Evelyn Hart because our marriage ceremony had never been completed—had been found alive inside the estate where she vanished three years earlier.
Every major network had the story by breakfast.
RUNAWAY BRIDE FOUND ALIVE.
MISSING WOMAN DISCOVERED IN SECRET ROOM.
BOSTON HEIRESS SURVIVED THREE YEARS BENEATH FIANCÉ'S FAMILY ESTATE.
I hated every headline.
Not because they were inaccurate.
Because they turned Evelyn's suffering into a mystery before she had even been allowed to understand that the world had continued without her.
Detective Chen confiscated my phone after the anonymous messages.
Evelyn remained under medical supervision.
Doctors said her survival was unusual but not impossible.
Someone had clearly supplied her with enough food, water, medication, and basic sanitation to keep her alive.
That made the case stranger.
She had not simply been forgotten underground.
Someone had maintained her imprisonment.
And according to Evelyn, my sister had been part of it.
At nine that morning, Evelyn asked to speak to me alone.
The police allowed five minutes.
I sat beside the bed.
She looked cleaner after the nurses helped wash her hair, but seeing her in a hospital gown somehow made the last three years more real.
The wedding dress was gone.
Evidence now.
"Daniel."
"I'm here."
"I need you to believe something before everybody starts telling you I'm confused."
"I believe you."
"You haven't heard it."
"I don't care."
She looked at me for a long moment.
"You should."
I leaned closer.
"Then tell me."
She glanced toward the closed door.
"On our wedding day, I found a photograph in your father's study."
I frowned.
"Why were you in there?"
"Because someone put a note under the bridal-suite door."
"What note?"
"'If you marry Daniel without knowing what his father did, you'll regret it forever.'"
A chill moved through me.
"Who wrote it?"
"I don't know."
"Did you show anyone?"
"Bianca."
Of course.
"What did she say?"
"She told me it was probably a cruel wedding prank.
Then she said your father's study hadn't been touched since he died."
"That's true."
"She had the key."
I closed my eyes.
Naturally she did.
After our father died, Bianca managed much of the house.
"What photograph?"
Evelyn took a breath.
"Your mother."
I felt the familiar old pain.
"With who?"
"Marcus Vale."
My father's attorney.
"They were standing beside the old gatehouse."
"That doesn't mean anything."
"I know."
She looked down.
"Except the photograph had been taken two days after the date your mother supposedly died."
I stared at her.
"That's impossible."
"I thought the same thing."
"My mother died on November eighteenth."
"The photograph had a development stamp dated November twentieth."
"Those stamps can be wrong."
"Yes."
"But?"
"There was writing on the back."
She closed her eyes, remembering.
"What did it say?"
"'Elena knows about the accounts.
Move her before Thomas finds out.'"
Elena.
My mother.
Thomas.
My father.
I stood abruptly.
The chair scraped the floor.
"No."
Evelyn flinched.
I hated myself immediately.
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head.
"I reacted the same way."
"My mother's car went off a bridge.
They found her."
Evelyn opened her eyes.
"Did you see her body?"
I stopped.
I had been sixteen.
Bianca fourteen.
Our father told us the crash had caused severe damage.
The funeral had been closed casket.
I remembered standing beside Bianca while rain hammered the church windows.
I remembered Father's hand on my shoulder.
I remembered believing adults knew the truth because that was what children did.
"No," I said.
Evelyn nodded.
"I kept searching the study."
"What did you find?"
"A ledger."
My pulse accelerated.
"What kind?"
"Payments.
Names.
Addresses.
Dates.
Some looked like businesses.
Others looked like people.
I didn't understand."
"What happened next?"
"I heard someone outside."
"Bianca?"
"No."
Her voice changed.
"Marcus."
I sat again.
"He was at the wedding."
"I know."
"He told police he saw you drive away."
"He never saw me leave."
"What did he do?"
"He walked into the study and saw the ledger in my hands."
I already knew what came next would divide my life into before and after.
"He asked how much I had read."
"What did you say?"
"I lied.
I told him none of it."
"Did he believe you?"
"No."
She stared toward the window.
"He locked the study door."
My fists clenched.
"Did he hurt you?"
"Not then."
"What happened?"
"Bianca came."
I blinked.
"She came into the room?"
"She had another key."
"And?"
Evelyn's jaw trembled.
"They argued."
"About you?"
"About your family."
"What did Bianca say?"
Evelyn looked at me.
"She told Marcus I was Daniel's fiancée and that if anything happened to me, you would never stop looking."
My breath caught.
That sounded like Bianca protecting her.
"Marcus said that was exactly the problem."
"What problem?"
"You."
I leaned forward.
"Me?"
"He said you had already started asking questions about Mercer Capital.
About old transfers your father authorized."
I remembered.
Months before the wedding, I had discovered irregularities in historical company records.
I assumed they were tax structures from my father's era.
I had asked Bianca if she knew anything.
She claimed she didn't.
"Keep going."
"Marcus said if I told you what I found, you would connect the accounts."
"What accounts?"
"I still don't know all of it."
"What happened after the argument?"
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
"Bianca told me we needed to get me out of the study without anyone noticing.
She said she knew another way."
"The tunnel."
"Yes."
A terrible understanding formed.
"She took you underground."
Evelyn nodded.
"She opened a hidden door behind your father's bookcase.
We went down a staircase.
I thought she was helping me."
"Wasn't she?"
"At first."
Two words.
At first.
"What happened?"
"Marcus followed us."
I felt my heart pounding.
"Bianca knew he would?"
"I don't know."
Evelyn rubbed her wrist unconsciously.
"I remember running.
I remember the tunnel splitting.
Bianca pulled me toward the west chamber beneath the bridal suite.
She said I had to stay hidden for an hour.
Just until Marcus left."
"But you stayed three years."
Her face broke.
"Yes."
I reached for her hand.
This time she let me take it.
"Why?"
She whispered, "Because Bianca came back that night."
My throat tightened.
"And she didn't let you out."
Evelyn shook her head.
"She was crying.
She told me Marcus had people outside the estate.
She said if I came upstairs, they'd kill me."
"Did you believe her?"
"At first."
There it was again.
"Then?"
"Days became weeks."
Her voice flattened.
"Bianca brought food.
Water.
Books.
Sometimes medicine.
She said the danger hadn't passed."
"Why didn't you use the other tunnel exit?"
"I tried."
"The steel door."
She nodded.
"Locked from the other side."
"Did Bianca have the key?"
"I thought so."
"You thought?"
"Until six months ago."
I waited.
Evelyn looked toward the door.
"Someone else started coming."
"Who?"
"I never saw his face.
He came at night through the east tunnel.
He would stand behind the steel door."
"What did he want?"
"He asked me questions."
"About what?"
"The ledger.
The photograph.
What I remembered."
I felt cold.
"What did you tell him?"
"Nothing."
"Did Bianca know?"
Evelyn's expression hardened.
"I asked her."
"What did she say?"
"She told me no one else could reach the chamber."
"She lied."
"Yes."
"Then why keep you alive?"
Evelyn stared at me.
"Because they believed I knew where the original ledger was."
"Did you?"
She hesitated.
That hesitation terrified me.
"Evelyn."
She looked directly at me.
"I hid it before Bianca took me underground."
"Where?"
May you like
Her next words made my blood run cold.
"In your wedding gift."
