Chapter 6 - The SignatureEmma stared at Arthur.
Arthur had practically raised her after their father died.
She had cried beside him at every press conference.
She had handed out missing posters.
She had moved into Arthur and Eleanor’s house for six months because Eleanor could not bear sleeping alone.
The idea that Victoria might have known Raymond Mercer seemed obscene.
Arthur confronted her that evening at Bell House.
Victoria was sixty-two now.
Immaculate.
White silk blouse.
Pearl earrings.
The kind of woman who could insult someone without changing the temperature of her voice.
She stared at the photograph.
“This is ridiculous.”
“That’s you.”
“It resembles me.”
Emma sat across from her.
“It was found at my mother’s house.”
Victoria’s eyes flicked toward Emma.
She had not hugged her.
Had not cried.
Her first reaction after learning Claire had been found was to request a private DNA confirmation from another laboratory.
Arthur had dismissed it as shock.
Now he saw something else.
Fear.
“When was the photo taken?” he asked.
“I have no idea.”
Arthur placed it closer.
“You were with Raymond.”
“Raymond Mercer is dead.”
“He threatened me two days ago.”
“You don’t know that.”
Emma watched Victoria.
“You don’t seem surprised I’m alive.”
Victoria smiled faintly.
“My dear, after thirty-one years, surprise becomes complicated.”
“Call me Emma.”
“Of course.”
Arthur leaned forward.
“What happened in 1995?”
Victoria’s eyes hardened.
“Nothing involving me.”
Detective Alvarez arrived ten minutes later.
She carried banking records.
“We traced Mercer.”
Arthur stood.
“He’s alive?”
“Maybe.”
She placed documents on the table.
A shell company had been paying property taxes on an isolated home in Georgia for twenty-four years.
The company’s original registration led to Raymond Mercer.
But one annual payment stood out.
In 2013, the taxes had been paid directly from a Bell family trust.
Arthur looked at Victoria.
Her face remained perfectly still.
Maria continued.
“Victoria was trustee that year.”
Arthur stared at his sister.
“Tell me.”
Victoria stood.
“This conversation is over.”
Maria stepped toward her.
“No, ma’am. It’s just beginning.”
Victoria’s lawyer arrived within the hour.
She answered nothing else.
By midnight, Arthur sat alone in the library.
Emma found him there.
“You don’t have to apologize for her.”
He looked up.
“I brought you into this house thinking I was giving you back a family.”
“You gave me information.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No.”
Emma sat opposite him.
“But maybe family is something we build after the truth.”
Arthur looked at her.
She was still not comfortable calling him Dad.
He never asked.
That made it easier.
The next morning, police entered Raymond Mercer’s Georgia property.
Empty.
But somebody had lived there until very recently.
They found canned food.
Fresh batteries.
Prescription medication.
And one locked room.
Inside were photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Emma at age eight.
Age twelve.
Age nineteen.
Her wedding.
Lily’s birth.
Marjorie walking through grocery stores.
Arthur leaving his office.
Eleanor entering a cancer clinic.
Raymond had watched all of them.
For decades.
Then police found a ledger.
Most entries were coded.
But one page contained a recurring initial.
V.
Payments began in September 1995.
One month before Claire vanished.
Emma stared at the copied page.
“You think Victoria hired him.”
Arthur looked sick.
“I think we need proof.”
“Why would she?”
That answer came from Caleb.
He had been researching old family financial records.
In 1995, Arthur Bell controlled 68 percent of Bell Holdings.
Claire, as his only child, was sole heir.
If Arthur and Eleanor died without another child, Claire would eventually control everything.
But if Claire died or could not be located for a certain period, shares were redistributed among surviving Bell family beneficiaries.
Including Victoria.
Emma whispered, “Money.”
Arthur shook his head.
“She was seventeen.”
“Seventeen-year-olds don’t usually hire kidnappers.”
“No.”
Arthur’s face changed.
“But our mother could have.”
Silence filled the room.
Arthur’s mother, Constance Bell, had been the most powerful member of the family.
Cold.
Controlling.
Obsessed with the Bell name.
She had despised Eleanor.
Arthur had married against her wishes.
Constance died in 2008.
Emma looked at him.
“Could she have taken me?”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“I don’t know anymore.”
That night, Lily finally arrived at Bell House.
She ran into Emma’s arms.
Arthur stood at a respectful distance.
Lily looked around the mansion.
“Do you really live here?”
Arthur smiled.
“Yes.”
“All alone?”
He looked at Emma.
“Until recently.”
Lily wandered toward a framed photograph of Eleanor.
“Who’s she?”
Arthur answered softly.
“Your grandmother.”
Lily studied the picture.
“She looks like Mom.”
“Yes.”
Emma looked away before Arthur could see her eyes filling.
Then the doorbell rang.
A courier stood outside with a package addressed to Emma.
No return address.
Inside was the stolen locket.
Arthur grabbed it.
The photographs had been removed.
But underneath the velvet lining was a folded strip of microfilm.
Caleb held it beneath a light.
“It’s a bank transfer record.”
Arthur read the name.
His face went blank.
May you like
The payment that funded Claire’s kidnapping had not come from Constance.
It had come from Arthur himself.
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