Chapter 7 - The Second Bride
The second veil did not belong to Evelyn.
That was the first thing forensic technicians established.
Different fabric.
Different age.
Hand-sewn lace.
Possibly decades old.
It had been folded inside a cedar chest beneath the gatehouse floor.
Beside it were photographs of women.
Sixteen photographs.
All taken at Blackwood House.
Some were decades old.
Some much newer.
Several women wore formal dresses.
Two wore wedding gowns.
One was my mother.
Another photograph made Bianca sit down when she saw it.
The woman was our aunt Caroline.
Our father's younger sister.
According to family history, Caroline moved to Europe when I was seven.
She sent birthday cards for a few years.
Then communication stopped.
Father said she wanted a different life.
Her photograph showed her standing in the same bridal suite where Evelyn had been found.
Behind her, written faintly on the wall, was a date.
1998.
The year before she supposedly left America.
Detective Chen spread copies of the photographs across a conference table.
"Do you recognize the others?"
Bianca shook her head.
I recognized one.
"That's Allison Reed."
Chen looked up.
"Who?"
"She worked for my father.
Executive assistant.
She disappeared when I was in college."
Officially, Allison had resigned.
At least that was what we had been told.
Chen's team checked.
No confirmed sighting after her resignation.
Another missing woman.
Another story of someone leaving voluntarily.
The pattern was impossible to ignore.
Evelyn joined the interview by video from her hospital room.
When she saw the photographs, her face tightened.
"I saw those names."
"In the ledger?" Chen asked.
"Some."
"Which?"
She identified Allison.
Caroline.
Two others.
One name in particular stopped Bianca.
"Rachel Shaw."
Detective Chen looked at her.
"Related to Gideon?"
Bianca stared at the photograph.
"I don't know."
Rachel was young in the image.
Maybe twenty-five.
Blond hair.
Blue dress.
The photo dated back thirty years.
A records search revealed she had been Gideon Shaw's wife.
She disappeared in 1997.
Three years later Gideon Shaw supposedly died in a boating accident.
No body had ever been recovered.
The familiar shape of the story made my skin crawl.
People around my father had a habit of vanishing without bodies.
Detective Chen leaned back.
"We may not be dealing with one crime.
We may be looking at a system."
"Built by my father," I said.
"Or by people around him."
Bianca looked toward me.
"Dad didn't build the tunnels."
"What?"
"They were here before he bought Blackwood."
"Then who did?"
"Previous owner.
Prohibition-era construction.
Smuggling passages."
Chen nodded.
"We confirmed parts are older than the house renovations."
I looked at the photographs again.
"But Dad repurposed them."
"Yes," Bianca said.
"For hiding money at first.
Then people."
Evelyn spoke through the screen.
"He learned captivity was useful."
The room became quiet.
Her voice remained steady.
"If someone knew too much, he didn't always kill them.
He isolated them.
Made everyone believe they left.
Then he used them."
"Used them how?" Chen asked.
"Leverage.
Information.
Cooperation."
She looked at me through the screen.
"That was why I realized they wanted me alive."
I hated hearing her discuss her imprisonment as strategy.
"What did they want from you?"
"The archive."
"You didn't know where it was."
"They didn't believe me."
Bianca turned toward the camera.
"Evelyn, the person who came through the east tunnel—did he ever say a name?"
"No."
"Any accent?"
"No."
"Age?"
"Older.
Maybe sixty."
Bianca looked at me.
"Gideon Shaw would be seventy."
"If he's alive."
"He could be."
Chen's phone rang.
She stepped aside.
I looked at Bianca.
"Why didn't you tell me about Aunt Caroline?"
"I thought she left."
"You expect me to believe that after everything?"
"I was twelve."
"Did Dad ever mention her later?"
"Once."
"When?"
"The night he died."
I stared.
Our father died of a heart attack in his Boston apartment.
At least that was the official cause.
"What did he say?"
"'Caroline should have stayed gone.'"
"That's it?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Because he was delirious."
"Or terrified."
A moment later Chen returned.
"We found DNA results on the blood from the gatehouse."
My body went rigid.
"Mom?"
"No."
I exhaled.
Then saw her expression.
"Who?"
"The blood belongs to Marcus Vale."
I frowned.
"He died near Concord."
"Yes."
"Then how was his blood at Blackwood?"
"Because he was injured here before he drove away.
Or someone moved his blood."
"Was there enough to indicate serious injury?"
"Some."
"Who was he fighting?"
Chen hesitated.
"We found another DNA profile on a broken drinking glass."
My heart began pounding.
"Whose?"
She looked directly at me.
"Elena Mercer's."
Bianca covered her mouth.
Mom had been in the gatehouse.
Recently.
With Marcus.
And Marcus had later died.
"What killed him?" I asked.
"We haven't released that."
"I'm family."
"You're also part of an active investigation."
I stepped closer.
"Laura."
She sighed.
"Blunt-force trauma to the back of the head."
Bianca whispered, "Mom killed him."
"Don't assume that."
"What else am I supposed to assume?"
Chen looked at both of us.
"That we don't know yet."
My phone, finally returned earlier that day, vibrated.
Unknown number again.
I showed Chen before opening it.
The message contained only a photograph.
My mother sitting in what looked like a motel room.
Holding that day's newspaper.
Alive.
Beneath the image:
DANIEL.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH.
Then an address.
A motel in Worcester.
Detective Chen immediately said, "You're not going alone."
But another message arrived.
IF POLICE ENTER THE ROOM FIRST, ELENA DIES.
Bianca stood.
"Daniel, no."
I stared at my mother's face.
Twenty-two years of grief.
Twenty-two years of questions.
Twenty-two years of believing ashes existed where a living woman might have been.
May you like
I looked at Detective Chen.
"I'm going."
