Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO WATCHED MY SON BE BORN
For several seconds, I couldn't understand what my mother had said.
“Vanessa was where?”
“At the hospital.”
I stared at Eleanor.
“No.”
She nodded miserably.
“She came the afternoon Noah was born.”
I remembered that day so clearly.
The freezing November rain.
The terrible pain.
My mother holding my hand.
Then the overwhelming relief of hearing my son cry for the first time.
There had been no Vanessa.
No reporters.
No Blackwood executives.
Only my mother, two nurses, and a tiny baby wrapped in a blue blanket.
At least, that was what I'd believed.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Eleanor looked down.
“Because she threatened you.”
I felt my hands grow cold.
“How?”
“She knew about the family trust. She said if you ever tried to contact Adrian, the company would accuse you of manipulating him with the pregnancy.”
My mother began crying.
“She said they'd reopen the scandal and make sure no school, landlord, or employer would ever forget your name.”
I looked toward the garden.
Noah was examining a ladybug on Rachel's palm.
He had no idea adults were discussing the day he entered the world.
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her to leave.”
“And?”
“She gave me an envelope.”
Eleanor walked to the hallway closet.
From a shoebox, she removed a cream-colored envelope.
Inside was a check.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Made payable to Eleanor Bennett.
Unsigned.
I stared.
“She wanted to buy your silence?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take it?”
“No.”
My mother looked ashamed anyway.
“But I didn't tell anyone she came. I was afraid she'd make good on her threats.”
I sat heavily on the stairs.
For years, I'd wondered why Vanessa seemed so determined to destroy me.
Now I understood one part.
She had known about Noah from the beginning.
Adrian hadn't.
But Vanessa had.
And that changed everything.
I called Adrian back.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, his voice sounded unfamiliar.
“Vanessa knew about my son for five years?”
“Yes.”
“She let me believe you were gone.”
“Yes.”
“She watched me spend years mourning what I thought I'd lost.”
I closed my eyes.
“Adrian, whatever she did, you still made your own choices.”
“I know.”
He sounded exhausted.
“And I'm going to face them.”
That afternoon, Adrian contacted his company's independent audit committee.
He requested a formal investigation into the trust transfer, the altered footage, and the payments connected to Vanessa's management company.
He also stepped away from decisions involving my career or the family trust.
When Rachel heard that, she looked surprised.
“He's giving up control.”
I shook my head.
“Temporarily.”
“Still.”
I couldn't argue.
By evening, the story had become national entertainment news.
Vanessa denied wrongdoing.
She claimed she'd visited the hospital as a concerned acquaintance and that the trust payment was a legitimate talent-development advance.
Then she did something unexpected.
She posted a photograph.
It showed me leaving a hospital five years earlier, carrying Noah in his infant carrier.
The caption read:
Some secrets were never mine to tell.
I stared at it until my vision blurred.
She had followed us.
She had known where we lived.
And she'd kept proof.
Rachel called immediately.
“Claire, don't respond publicly yet.”
“She's using my child.”
“I know. But she's trying to make you react.”
I looked at Noah.
He was building a tower from wooden blocks.
He glanced up.
“Mom, can you make the roof?”
I sat beside him.
“Of course.”
For five precious minutes, we built a crooked little house.
Noah placed a red block above the door.
“That's the alarm.”
“What does it do?”
“Keeps mean people out.”
I kissed his forehead.
“I wish it were that easy.”
He studied me.
Then he picked up a yellow block and placed it beside the house.
“That's for Adrian.”
I froze.
“Why?”
“So he can come over if he's nice.”
I swallowed hard.
My son wasn't asking for revenge.
He wasn't interested in corporate scandals or inherited money.
He wanted to know whether the serious man who looked like him could be trusted.
That evening, Adrian drove to Vermont.
I hadn't invited him.
He didn't come to the house.
Instead, he called Rachel and asked whether he could meet me at the public library the next morning.
I agreed.
When he arrived, he looked tired.
His hair wasn't perfectly styled.
His suit was expensive but wrinkled.
For the first time, he looked like a man whose money couldn't fix his problems.
He placed a small paper bag on the table.
Inside was Noah's silver watch.
I stared.
“How?”
“Vanessa returned it through her attorney.”
“Why?”
“Because she found out the watch was stolen from a child. Her attorney advised her to surrender it.”
I opened the case.
The tiny photograph was still inside.
The silver surface had been polished.
I could almost see Noah's delighted face when he received it.
Adrian looked at the watch.
“My father gave it to me when I was seven.”
I frowned.
“You said he was wearing it when he died.”
“He was. I'd given it back to him for repairs.”
He paused.
“After his death, I thought it had been lost forever.”
I touched the engraved initials.
“Why did you never mention your father's connection to my family?”
“Because I didn't know.”
He looked genuinely devastated.
“My father kept things from me too.”
We sat in silence.
Then Adrian took something from his coat pocket.
A small envelope.
Inside was a photograph of him at seven years old.
He was holding the silver watch.
Beside him stood Richard Blackwood.
Behind them was a young woman.
My mother.
I stared at Eleanor's smiling face.
“She knew you.”
Adrian nodded.
“When I was little, she sometimes visited our house. I remember her now.”
My throat tightened.
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“Maybe she wanted you to have a different life.”
I looked at him.
“A life without Blackwoods?”
He lowered his eyes.
“Given what happened, I can't blame her.”
Then he slid a second photograph across the table.
It showed Richard standing beside Edward Blackwood and Marcus Vale.
On the back was a handwritten date.
Six years ago.
Three weeks before Richard died.
“Marcus told me Edward had disappeared decades earlier,” Adrian said.
“But here he is.”
“Exactly.”
I turned the photograph over again.
There was writing beneath the date.
If anything happens, the original is with Daniel.
My breath caught.
“The original what?”
Adrian shook his head.
“That's what we're trying to find.”
Just then, my mother entered the library.
She'd come with Rachel and Noah.
When Eleanor saw the photograph, she stopped walking.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Edward.”
I stood.
“Mom?”
She reached for the back of a chair.
“He came back.”
“When?”
“Six years ago. Richard told me Edward had returned because he finally had proof.”
“Proof of what?”
My mother looked at Adrian.
Then she whispered:
“That Marcus Vale had been stealing from your family for twenty years.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“And Daniel had the original evidence?”
Eleanor nodded.
“But there's something else.”
“What?”
She pointed toward the photograph.
“To the man standing behind Edward.”
I looked again.
In the reflection of a glass door, a fourth person was visible.
A younger man wearing a dark coat.
Adrian leaned closer.
His face turned pale.
“That can't be right.”
“Who is it?” I demanded.
He looked at me.
“It's Daniel Cole.”
I stared.
Daniel.
Vanessa's brother.
The man who controlled the video that destroyed my career.
And in the reflection, he was holding something against Edward's back.
A folded leather folder.
On its cover was a familiar symbol.
The same red phoenix that had appeared on my audition paperwork six years earlier.
Adrian reached for his phone.
He opened a corporate security archive.
Then he showed me the final entry in Edward's visitor log.
DECEMBER 18 — 10:42 P.M.
VISITOR: EDWARD BLACKWOOD.
ESCORTED BY: DANIEL COLE.
DESTINATION: EXECUTIVE SCREENING ROOM.
Directly beneath it was another entry.
11:06 P.M. — EMERGENCY MEDICAL RESPONSE REQUESTED.
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Richard Blackwood had died that night.
And Edward Blackwood had vanished.
