Chapter 5: What Eleanor Chose to Leave Behind
Nicholas switched on his phone light.
“Maria, keep Lucy with you.”
The emergency lamps flickered to life.
The cabinet stood open, but the ledgers were gone.
Vivienne was missing too.
“She cut the power,” Agnes said.
“No,” Eleanor replied.
“The controls are in the security room.
She had help.”
Nicholas called the front gate.
No one answered.
Maria gripped Lucy’s hand.
“We are leaving.”
The welfare official blocked the corridor.
“Not until we establish where Lucy will be safe.”
“You saw the recording.”
“I saw Claudia Vale hold her wrist.
I still need a signed statement and the original file.”
Agnes raised the tablet.
“This is connected to the backup server.”
Dr.
Hale took one step back.
Eleanor noticed.
“You signed the false report before you examined Lucy, didn’t you?”
“I relied on photographs.”
“You relied on Malcolm’s money.”
Dr.
Hale reached for the door, but the officer stopped him.
“Doctor, you need to remain here.”
Nicholas found Maria near the staircase.
She was stuffing Lucy’s coat into a bag with shaking hands.
“You cannot stay here,” Maria said.
“Every secret in this house has been placed on my child’s shoulders.”
“I will protect both of you.”
“Your mother wrote that promise before Lucy was born.
Look what happened anyway.”
Eleanor stood behind him.
“She is right.”
Nicholas turned.
Eleanor’s voice broke.
“I left you with Lorenzo because Malcolm said he would ruin you if I spoke.
I told myself hiding was protection.”
“You let me believe you were de@d.”
“Yes.”
“You missed six birthdays.
You missed Father’s funeral.
You let me stand beside that grave alone.”
“I watched from a car across the road.”
Nicholas struck the banister with his palm.
“That makes it worse.”
Eleanor flinched.
“You chose fear over me,” he said.
“Say it.”
Tears slipped down her face.
“I chose fear over you.”
Nicholas’s shoulders folded.
Maria caught his arm before he fell against the stairs.
“I spent six years wondering whether I had failed you,” he said.
“No.” Eleanor moved closer but did not touch him.
“I failed you.”
Maria placed Nicholas’s hand against Lucy’s coat.
“You can be angry later,” she said.
“Right now, Lucy needs the man who blocked that door.”
Nicholas wiped his face.
“Agnes, take Lucy and Maria to the library.
Officer, go with them.”
Agnes shook her head.
“The library windows open onto the west drive.
Malcolm’s men know that.”
Maria stared at the housekeeper.
“Why are you helping me?”
Agnes removed a small memory card from her apron.
“Because Claudia ordered me to delete the recording.
She offered enough money to pay my grandson’s hospital bills.”
“Did you take it?” Nicholas asked.
“Yes.”
Maria’s expression tightened.
Agnes put the card in her hand.
“Then I copied everything, returned the money, and called my grandson.
He said he would rather owe the hospital than owe them.”
The front doors opened.
Claudia entered holding Lucy’s pink backpack.
Vivienne stood behind her with the missing ledgers.
“Lucy was in the kitchen,” Claudia said.
“She asked me to find her rabbit.”
Maria looked beside her.
Lucy was gone.
“Where is my daughter?”
Claudia smiled faintly.
“Safe, for the moment.”
Maria rushed forward, but Nicholas caught her.
Vivienne held up the ledgers.
“Give us the memory card and sign the release.
Lucy comes back immediately.”
“You expect me to trust you?” Maria demanded.
“No,” Vivienne said.
“I expect you to be a mother.”
Eleanor stepped toward Claudia.
“You frightened a child to protect Malcolm.”
Claudia’s smile disappeared.
“I protected my daughter from the mistake Lorenzo made with yours.”
Nicholas quietly moved his phone behind his back and pressed record.
Maria held up the memory card.
“Bring Lucy into this room.”
“Sign first.”
“No.”
Claudia looked at Vivienne.
“Then destroy the ledgers.”
Vivienne pulled a lighter from her pocket.
Nicholas stepped forward.
“If you burn them, your father loses his only bargaining tool.”
Vivienne’s thumb rested on the flame wheel.
“You still think those books contain Malcolm’s secret.”
“What do they contain?”
“Your mother’s.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened.
Vivienne opened the first ledger and read one line aloud.
“Payment authorized by Eleanor Moretti.”
Nicholas turned toward his mother.
Vivienne smiled through her tears.
May you like
“Ask her who paid Dr.
Hale to change Maria’s first DNA test.”
