Chapter 6
The instinct to order was immediate.
So was the realization that ordering her would prove every fear she had about men like me.
“Then choose somewhere else.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“If you don’t feel safe at my estate, tell me where you do. I’ll arrange security if you want it.”
“You’re asking?”
“I’m practicing.”
That earned a real smile.
“Is it painful?”
“Extremely.”
Claire glanced toward the room where Lily slept.
“One week,” she said.
“One week.”
“No searching my belongings.”
“I already chose not to.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“When?”
“Last night.”
She seemed genuinely surprised.
“No interrogations.”
“I ask questions.”
“You interrogate with better furniture.”
“Fine.”
“And if I say stop?”
“I stop.”
Claire studied my face.
“One week.”
By late afternoon, she and Lily returned to the estate.
Daniel had moved them into a guest cottage near the main residence, away from the compromised hallway.
That night, for the first time in years, I ate dinner in the breakfast room.
I claimed it was because Mrs. Alvarez needed to discuss staffing.
Nobody believed me.
Lily constructed a castle from peas.
“Those are vegetables,” I told her.
“They’re trees.”
“They are peas.”
“Pretend broccoli trees.”
“There’s an alarming lack of architectural integrity.”
Claire covered her mouth.
Lily stared at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
After dinner, she showed me a drawing of the estate.
The house was blue.
The grass purple.
Beside the door stood a black stick figure twice as tall as the building.
“Who is that?”
“You.”
“Why am I taller than the roof?”
“You’re very tall.”
Claire leaned closer.
“Why doesn’t Mr. Adrian have a mouth?”
Lily shrugged.
“He doesn’t talk.”
Claire laughed so suddenly she nearly spilled her coffee.
I looked at her.
It was the first time I had heard the sound.
Something about it made the house seem less empty.
Later, Daniel entered my study carrying several archived reports.
“Someone did use the old administrator override last night.”
“Who?”
“That’s the problem.”
He handed me the access history.
“The override belonged to your father.”
“My father has been dead seven years.”
“I’m aware.”
“Why is his code active?”
“It wasn’t. It was restored.”
“Who knew it?”
“Thomas. Me.”
He hesitated.
“Victor.”
“What was it originally for?”
“I don’t remember.”
Before I could answer, Daniel placed another document on my desk.
An old Moretti memo.
October 2012.
BENNETT MATERIALS — PRESERVATION INSTRUCTIONS.
My pulse slowed.
My father had ordered all materials provided by Eleanor Bennett preserved in a private archive.
“What materials?”
“Not listed.”
“Where is the archive?”
“Gone.”
“When?”
“2014.”
The same restructuring Victor had prepared.
“Authorization?”
Daniel slid another page toward me.
My signature.
I stared at it.
“I don’t remember this.”
“You signed hundreds of restructuring documents after Thomas became ill.”
“Prepared by Victor Kane.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Daniel.
“So somewhere inside hundreds of pages, an archive connected to Eleanor vanished.”
“That’s how it appears.”
A soft knock sounded.
Claire stood in the doorway holding a brown envelope.
“I called my aunt.”
She crossed the room.
“She kept a box from my mother’s apartment that I never knew existed.”
Claire laid the envelope on my desk.
“This was taped underneath it.”
My name was written across the front.
Not Mr. Moretti.
Not Adrian Moretti.
Just Adrian.
I unfolded the letter.
Adrian,
If you are reading this, Thomas is gone or unable to help, and Claire has finally decided you deserve the choice your father tried to protect you from.
I stopped.
“Read it,” Claire whispered.
Victor did not steal money from your family. He hid ownership. There are four names attached to the river properties that should never have disappeared, and one of them is yours.
The final paragraph made my hands go cold.
Your father believed the truth would cost you the life he wanted you to have. I believed hiding it would cost you more.
The proof was never in the archive.
Thomas knew where we put it.
Ask Daniel about the blue room.
Daniel went completely still.
“What blue room?” Claire asked.
I looked at him.
He lowered his eyes.
“There hasn’t been a blue room in this house for twenty-two years.”
“Where was it?”
“The old north wing.”
“The wing my father demolished.”
“Yes.”
“Why was it called the blue room?”
Daniel looked at me for a long time.
May you like
“Because it belonged to your mother.”
My mother, Elena Moretti, had died when I was sixteen.
