Chapter 6 - THE ACCOUNT OF A DEAD MAN
Penelope stared at Gabriel.
“Check again.”
“I did.”
“Then check a third time.”
Gabriel did.
Nobody spoke while he worked.
Finally he looked up.
“Same result.”
Penelope sat down.
Dominic crouched in front of her.
“Penelope.”
“My father died twenty-one years ago.”
“I know.”
“No, you know what people told me.”
Her voice cracked.
“I watched my mother fall apart. I watched her sell our house because she couldn’t afford the mortgage. I spent years thinking he left us with nothing.”
Evelyn looked stricken.
“I’m sorry.”
Penelope turned toward her.
“Did you know he survived?”
“No.”
“Did anyone in this room know?”
Silence.
Richard shook his head.
Celeste did too.
Dominic said, “We find the truth before we decide what it means.”
Penelope laughed bitterly.
“You sound very reasonable for a man who nearly tore Richard apart an hour ago.”
“I’m improving.”
Against every instinct, she smiled.
Just once.
It helped.
Gabriel traced the account access to an old trust branch in Providence.
No current address.
But there was a physical withdrawal authorization.
A signature.
Elias Hayes.
Penelope examined it.
Her heart sank.
“That’s his handwriting.”
Dominic watched her.
“You’re sure?”
“He made my lunch notes every morning.”
A memory hit her.
Brown paper bags.
A ridiculous smiley face beside her name.
She had saved the last one for years.
Then she remembered something else.
“The H.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My father crossed his H right to left.”
Richard’s forged signature on the hidden blueprint had done the same.
Penelope stood.
“That wasn’t someone forging your signature.”
She looked at Richard.
“It was my father signing your name.”
Richard stared.
“Why?”
Evelyn answered slowly.
“To lead Penelope back.”
The forged blueprint.
The east-wing project.
The strange chamber.
Penelope’s selection for the design team.
None of it had been random.
Her father had been moving pieces for years.
Anger rose beneath her shock.
“He manipulated my career.”
Richard shook his head.
“I hired you.”
“Why?”
“Your portfolio.”
“Who sent it?”
Richard went quiet.
Penelope knew.
“Who?”
“An anonymous recommendation.”
She closed her eyes.
Even that.
Dominic said quietly, “He couldn’t make you talented.”
She looked at him.
“He could only put your work where Richard would see it.”
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
By morning, Gabriel had obtained surveillance from the bank.
The withdrawal had been made by a man in his late sixties.
Baseball cap.
Gray beard.
A limp.
Penelope stared at the image.
She did not recognize him.
Then the man turned slightly.
A scar ran along his jaw.
Penelope’s childhood came rushing back.
Her father had gotten that scar fixing their garage door.
She stood so quickly the chair fell behind her.
“That’s him.”
Dominic caught her elbow.
She pulled away.
Not from him.
From everything.
“He’s alive.”
Nobody tried to soften it.
Richard finally asked the question nobody wanted to ask.
“If Elias is alive, why hasn’t he contacted Penelope?”
Evelyn answered.
“Because Victor is still watching.”
Penelope rounded on her.
“For twenty-one years?”
“Yes.”
“I’m thirty-four years old.”
“I know.”
“He missed my graduation.”
Evelyn’s face crumpled.
“My wedding.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You were married?”
“Briefly.”
She wiped her eyes angrily.
“He missed my divorce too, which honestly was the more enjoyable event.”
Dominic’s mouth twitched.
Penelope kept going because if she stopped, she would cry.
“He missed my mother’s funeral.”
Evelyn whispered, “Penelope…”
“That one he doesn’t get forgiven for.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “He doesn’t.”
Penelope stopped.
Again, nobody was asking her to make betrayal easier because the person who hurt her had a reason.
It was unfamiliar.
And strangely comforting.
Gabriel’s search found one more clue.
The bank camera showed Elias leaving with an envelope.
He handed it to a bicycle courier.
The delivery destination was Vale Mansion.
“Did anything arrive yesterday?” Dominic asked.
Gabriel checked.
“One package.”
They found it in the security office.
Unopened.
Addressed simply:
THE ARCHITECT.
Penelope opened it.
Inside was her grandmother’s rosary.
Impossible.
The rosary she had seen inside her apartment storage box hours earlier.
She checked her purse.
She had absentmindedly brought it with her.
It was still there.
Two identical rosaries.
One belonged to her grandmother.
The other—
“My father had one too.”
She remembered them praying together after her grandmother died.
Matching wooden beads.
Matching silver crosses.
Wrapped around the second rosary was a strip of drafting paper.
A hand-drawn map.
Penelope recognized the coastline.
At the bottom:
COME WHERE WE SAID GOODBYE.
ALONE.
Dominic read it.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“It says alone.”
“I can read.”
“If my father—”
“If it’s your father, he’ll understand why you didn’t walk into an unknown location alone after discovering a twenty-one-year criminal conspiracy.”
“And if someone is watching?”
“They’ll see you arrive alone.”
Penelope narrowed her eyes.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’m very good at being unseen when necessary.”
“Somehow that is not reassuring.”
“It wasn’t intended to be.”
The map led to Beavertail State Park on Jamestown Island.
Penelope remembered the place.
Her father had taken her there the week before he died.
They had sat near the lighthouse eating sandwiches.
He had hugged her too long.
She had thought he was being weird.
Now she understood.
That had been goodbye.
Near sunset, Penelope walked alone toward the rocks.
Dominic and Gabriel remained far behind.
The ocean crashed below.
A man stood facing the water.
Gray hair.
Heavy coat.
Limp.
Penelope stopped.
The man turned.
Twenty-one years disappeared from his face.
She saw him.
Her father.
“Penny.”
Her knees nearly failed.
He took one step toward her.
She raised a hand.
“Don’t.”
Elias stopped.
Tears filled his eyes.
“You’re alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let Mom die believing you were dead.”
His face broke.
“I know.”
Penelope slapped him.
The sound disappeared into the wind.
Elias did not move.
“I deserved that.”
“Don’t make this easier for me.”
“I won’t.”
She was crying now.
“So tell me why.”
“Because Victor Sloane told me if I contacted either of you, he would finish what he started.”
“What did he start?”
Elias looked toward the sea.
“Taking the Vale family apart.”
Penelope shook her head.
“This is about them?”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“It became about you the night you drew that east wing.”
She stared.
“I was twelve.”
“And you accidentally solved a structural problem Victor had spent years trying to solve.”
“What problem?”
“How to reach the chamber without triggering the original security system.”
Penelope’s stomach tightened.
“The east wing.”
Elias nodded.
“Your design created a second route.”
“But I didn’t know.”
“That was why you were safe.”
“Until Richard built it.”
“Yes.”
She stepped closer.
“Then why send my portfolio to him?”
Elias looked ashamed.
“Because I needed the wing completed.”
Penelope stared at him.
“You used me.”
“I told myself I was giving you the career you deserved.”
“You used me.”
“Yes.”
The admission hurt.
But at least he gave it to her cleanly.
“Why?”
Elias looked past her.
Toward the road.
Then his face changed.
“Dominic shouldn’t have come.”
Penelope turned.
Dominic emerged from the trees.
Elias looked terrified.
“You don’t understand.”
Dominic approached.
“Then explain.”
Elias shook his head.
“It was never the ledger Victor wanted.”
“What did he want?”
Elias looked at Penelope.
“The room wasn’t built to hide evidence.”
A vehicle engine roared somewhere behind them.
Gabriel shouted.
Dominic pulled Penelope toward him.
Elias reached inside his coat.
Dominic’s hand moved toward his weapon.
“Don’t!”
Elias pulled out a folded architectural plan.
He shoved it into Penelope’s hands.
“The chamber was built around something older.”
“What?”
A black SUV appeared on the access road.
Elias backed toward the rocks.
“Your east wing didn’t hide the room, Penny.”
He looked at Dominic.
“It woke it up.”
Then Penelope unfolded the drawing.
Beneath the mansion was a second structure.
May you like
And written across its center were two words.
VALE NURSERY.
