Chapter 4 - THE AUNT WHO RAISED HIMAdrian drove to Victoria Whitmore’s estate before sunrise.
“Get your hands off me!”
She twisted violently as two security officers rushed toward them.
Adrian followed slowly.
“Take her to the sitting room.”
“You can’t imprison me in your own house.”
“No,” Adrian said. “But I can ask my fiancée why someone who kidnapped my mother knows her name.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
“That’s becoming a familiar phrase.”
The sitting room doors closed behind them.
Marcus remained near the entrance.
Vanessa stood beside the fireplace, shaking with anger.
Adrian placed his phone on the table and enlarged the photograph of Elena.
Vanessa looked away.
“October 1998,” Adrian said. “What happened?”
“I was ten years old.”
“So was I.”
“I don’t know what this has to do with anything.”
“Your father knew mine.”
“Everyone knew your father.”
“Your father worked with Cavanaugh Consulting.”
“I already told you—”
Marcus interrupted.
“Cavanaugh wasn’t an investment company.”
Vanessa looked at him.
Marcus had been searching from his laptop.
“It was a private security contractor.”
Adrian approached.
“What kind?”
“Corporate investigations. Surveillance. Asset recovery.”
“Asset recovery?”
Marcus’s expression darkened.
“The company was sued twice for unlawful detention.”
Vanessa’s shoulders tightened.
“And in 1998?” Adrian asked.
Marcus searched.
“The lawsuits disappear.”
“What does that mean?”
“Records were sealed.”
“By whom?”
“I’m trying to find out.”
Adrian looked at Vanessa.
“What does your father know?”
She said nothing.
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“What does your father know about my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call him.”
“No.”
The refusal came immediately.
Adrian stared at her.
Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears.
“Because if I call him, he’ll know.”
“Know what?”
“That Elena spoke.”
The room became silent.
Adrian’s chest tightened.
“So you did know.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“When?”
“Adrian…”
“When did you know Elena was my mother?”
“Three months ago.”
He felt as though she had struck him.
Three months.
They had chosen wedding flowers together.
Selected a honeymoon location.
Discussed children.
All while she knew.
“How?”
“My father told me.”
“Why?”
“Because he recognized her.”
“From twenty-eight years ago?”
“Yes.”
Adrian sat down slowly.
“What happened in October 1998?”
Vanessa looked toward Marcus.
“Send him out.”
“No.”
“This involves our families.”
“That stopped being a private family issue when someone kidnapped Elena.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“My father was working for Charles.”
“My father hired him?”
“Yes.”
“To do what?”
Vanessa stared at Adrian.
“To keep Elena away from you.”
The words landed heavily.
Adrian looked at the photograph on his phone.
“What did that mean?”
“At first, surveillance.”
“And later?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Tell me what you know.”
Vanessa hugged herself.
“In 1998, Elena returned to Chicago.”
Adrian remembered that year.
He had been ten.
There had been an incident outside his school.
A woman had appeared near the gates.
He could barely remember her face.
Only her voice.
Adrian.
She had called his name.
Before he could reach her, two men had taken her away.
His father told him she was mentally ill.
That night Charles moved Adrian to another school.
Adrian stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“There was a woman outside Lakeview Academy.”
Vanessa looked down.
“That was Elena.”
Adrian’s stomach turned.
“She called me.”
“Yes.”
“I tried to go to her.”
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“My father kept reports.”
Adrian stared at her.
“You read them.”
“Some.”
“Did they hurt her?”
Vanessa didn’t answer.
Adrian slammed his palm against the table.
“Did they hurt her?”
“Yes!”
She began crying.
“I don’t know how badly. She was detained for several days. My father says Charles wanted to frighten her.”
“Several days?”
“They threatened to have her permanently committed.”
Adrian turned away.
His childhood suddenly rearranged itself.
The mysterious woman.
His father’s anger.
A week later, Charles had taken Adrian to Europe for nearly two months.
Adrian had believed it was a vacation.
It had been an escape.
“My father told me my mother abandoned me,” he whispered.
Vanessa nodded.
“Yes.”
“And your father helped him keep that lie alive.”
“Yes.”
“Then you learned three months ago.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
“I was afraid you would end the engagement.”
Adrian looked at her.
She seemed to hear the ugliness of her own confession.
“I love you.”
“No.”
“I do.”
“You loved becoming Vanessa Whitmore.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Her voice broke.
“My whole life, my father controlled everything. Where I went to school. Who I dated. What friends I had. When he learned you and I were serious, he became obsessed with the marriage.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t understand then.”
“And now?”
Vanessa looked toward the old portrait of Charles Whitmore over the fireplace.
“Because your marriage protects him.”
Adrian went still.
“How?”
“The blue ledger.”
Marcus raised his eyes from the laptop.
Vanessa continued.
“My father told me Charles recorded every illegal payment he ever made.”
“To whom?”
“Judges. Private investigators. Doctors. Police officers. People who helped him manipulate custody records and hide what happened to Elena.”
“Why would our marriage protect your father?”
“Because he believes the ledger is still somewhere in this house.”
Adrian understood.
Vanessa married him.
She gained unrestricted access.
Her father found the ledger.
Evidence disappeared forever.
“You were searching my house.”
Vanessa’s silence was an answer.
“For three months?”
“I never found it.”
Adrian felt physically sick.
“You slept beside me.”
“I know.”
“You talked about having children with me.”
“I meant that.”
“While searching my dead father’s house for evidence your father committed crimes against my mother.”
Vanessa began sobbing.
“I was going to tell you after the wedding.”
“After you destroyed the ledger?”
She could not answer.
Marcus’s phone rang.
He stepped away, listened, then returned.
“Police located Margaret Ellis.”
Adrian turned.
“Is she safe?”
Marcus hesitated.
“She was attacked at her apartment.”
Adrian’s blood ran cold.
“Alive?”
“Yes. She’s at Northwestern Memorial.”
“Get the car.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“I can help.”
Adrian looked at her as if she were a stranger.
“You’ve helped enough.”
He walked out.
Thirty minutes later, Adrian entered a guarded hospital room.
Margaret Ellis looked small beneath the blankets. Purple bruises covered one side of her face.
When she saw Adrian, tears filled her eyes.
“You look like Elena,” she whispered.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who took her?”
Margaret glanced toward the door.
“Graham Cole.”
Vanessa’s father.
Adrian expected the answer.
It still hurt.
Margaret reached beneath her pillow.
“I kept this for Elena.”
She handed him a brass key.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“She gave it to you?”
“Twenty years ago.”
Adrian examined it.
A tiny number had been engraved into the metal.
27.
Margaret squeezed his wrist.
“Your father wasn’t the only person who wanted Elena gone.”
“Who else?”
Her breathing became shallow.
“Someone inside the Whitmore family.”
Adrian leaned closer.
“Who?”
Margaret whispered a name.
Adrian stepped back.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It’s true.”
Adrian stared at her.
The person Margaret named had raised him after his father became ill.
Had attended every birthday.
Had sat beside him at Charles’s funeral.
His aunt.
Victoria Whitmore.
Then Adrian’s phone rang.
Victoria’s name appeared on the screen.
He answered without speaking.
Her voice was calm.
“Adrian, darling. I heard there was trouble at your engagement party.”
Adrian’s hand tightened around the brass key.
“How much do you know?”
A pause.
May you like
Then Victoria said something that made his heart stop.
“Enough to know you should have let Elena stay dead.”
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