Chapter 4 - The Man Who Paid to Search for HerAdrian moved between Harrison and the hospital bed.
Barely.
Doctors later confirmed that someone had put a powerful sedative into his tea.
The same family of medication had appeared in Evelyn’s bloodwork four years earlier—but because she had vanished before police knew what they were looking for, the old evidence had never made sense.
Now it did.
At Hudson Valley Medical Center, Adrian sat outside Evelyn’s room while detectives came and went.
He had imagined their reunion thousands of times.
In every version, he found her running toward him.
They embraced.
They cried.
The nightmare ended.
Reality was crueler.
Evelyn flinched when doors closed too loudly.
She watched every cup of water brought into the room.
She asked nurses whether the windows opened.
Adrian wanted desperately to hold her.
He was afraid to touch her without permission.
Finally, shortly after midnight, she looked toward the chair where he had been sitting for hours.
“You can come closer.”
He moved beside the bed.
Neither spoke.
After a moment, Evelyn looked at his wedding ring.
“You still wear it.”
“Every day.”
Her eyes filled.
“So do I. In my head.”
Adrian reached into his pocket.
The police had recovered her ring from Miranda.
He placed it on the blanket.
Evelyn stared at it.
She did not immediately put it on.
“I thought about this ring every night,” she whispered.
Adrian swallowed.
“What happened that night?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Miranda invited me to dinner.”
Four years earlier, Adrian had been in Singapore closing an acquisition.
Evelyn had remained at Blackwood Manor because she was preparing documents for the foundation she managed.
She had been reviewing old financial archives when she discovered irregularities.
Millions of dollars had moved through Blackwood charitable accounts into private shell companies.
The signatures approving the transfers belonged to Adrian.
Except Adrian had been overseas on dates when some signatures had supposedly been made in person.
Evelyn contacted an outside forensic accountant.
Before he could report back, he died in what police called a highway accident.
Evelyn became frightened.
She decided to tell Adrian.
Miranda intercepted her first.
“She said there was something I needed to see downstairs,” Evelyn explained. “She brought tea.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“You drank it.”
“I trusted her.”
Within fifteen minutes Evelyn became dizzy.
She remembered falling near the library.
She remembered Miranda kneeling beside her.
And she remembered another pair of shoes entering the room.
Men’s shoes.
Expensive.
Black leather.
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
“What did he say?”
Evelyn looked at Adrian.
“He said, ‘She knows too much now.’”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Would you recognize his voice?”
“I think so.”
“What happened next?”
Evelyn woke inside room seventeen.
Miranda told the world she had left the estate voluntarily.
Her purse was planted near a train station.
A woman resembling Evelyn was filmed on security cameras boarding a train north.
Adrian chased the false lead for weeks.
Meanwhile Evelyn remained less than two hundred yards from his bedroom.
“Why didn’t I hear you?” Adrian whispered.
“The eastern wing walls are stone. They played music when you were home.”
His eyes burned.
“I was here?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Three times during the first year.”
Adrian stood abruptly.
He crossed the room, struggling to breathe.
He remembered those visits.
Miranda had insisted that the eastern section was closed because of mold and water damage.
Adrian had slept in the west wing.
Once, in the middle of the night, he thought he heard knocking inside a wall.
Miranda told him it was old pipes.
He had believed her.
“I was thirty rooms away.”
Evelyn looked down.
“You didn’t know.”
“But I was there.”
“You didn’t know.”
He covered his face.
“I should have.”
Evelyn watched him for a long moment.
Then she said quietly, “That’s what she wanted.”
Adrian looked up.
“She wanted me to believe that if you didn’t find me, it was because you didn’t love me enough.”
His face crumpled.
Evelyn continued.
“She brought me newspaper articles about your searches. Then she’d tell me they were staged for publicity.”
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
“I know that now.”
“She showed you fake evidence?”
“She showed me photographs.”
“What photographs?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Of you with other women.”
Adrian understood.
Business dinners.
Charity events.
Photographs cropped to imply intimacy.
“Miranda wanted you to hate me.”
“She wanted both of us broken.”
“Why keep you alive?”
“Because of the financial files. I had encrypted copies.”
“Where?”
“I never told them.”
Adrian almost smiled.
Even imprisoned and terrified, Evelyn had fought back.
“You told me you hid evidence in room seventeen.”
“That was only what I collected later.”
“Where are the original files?”
Evelyn looked toward the door.
Then lowered her voice.
“Your mother’s piano.”
Adrian froze.
The grand piano in the manor’s music room had belonged to his mother.
Evelyn had discovered a false panel beneath the keyboard years earlier.
She hid the drive inside it before drinking Miranda’s tea.
“No one knows?”
“Not unless they found it.”
Adrian stood.
“I’m going back.”
“No.”
Her reaction was immediate.
He stopped.
“Adrian, someone poisoned the steward today. Miranda was already in custody.”
He understood.
The accomplice was still inside—or had access to—the estate.
Ross entered the room moments later carrying his laptop.
His face was grim.
“We pulled the manor’s security records.”
Adrian turned.
“And?”
“Most footage from the eastern wing was routinely deleted.”
“Most?”
Ross opened a video.
“The system accidentally backed up eleven seconds from three years ago.”
The grainy footage showed Miranda entering the corridor.
Another figure followed.
A man.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
He turned toward the camera.
Adrian stared.
His stomach dropped.
“No.”
Evelyn sat upright.
“What?”
Adrian could barely say the name.
“Uncle Harrison.”
Harrison Blackwood.
His father’s younger brother.
Chairman emeritus of Blackwood Global.
The man who had comforted Adrian at Evelyn’s memorial.
The man who had financed several private investigators.
The man who called every Christmas and said, We’ll never stop looking.
Ross stared at the frozen image.
“We need to locate him immediately.”
Adrian pulled out his phone.
There was already a message waiting.
From Harrison.
I heard about Evelyn. Thank God she’s alive. I’m coming to the hospital.
Adrian looked toward the door.
Then another text arrived.
We need to talk privately. There are things she doesn’t understand.
Evelyn saw Adrian’s expression.
“What is it?”
Before he could answer, the door opened.
Harrison Blackwood stood there.
Silver-haired.
Perfect suit.
Concern etched across his face.
He looked at Evelyn.
For a moment, nobody moved.
Then Harrison smiled gently.
“My dear girl.”
Evelyn’s heart monitor accelerated.
Her fingers locked around Adrian’s wrist.
She stared at Harrison in horror.
May you like
And whispered,
“That’s the voice.”
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