Chapter 4 - The Sister Who Became Her Mother's Guard
“Anna is guarding our mother?”
Emily stared at Grant as though he'd spoken another language.
“That doesn't make sense.”
Sebastian looked at the security records.
The name Anna Sterling appeared beside monthly payments and authorization codes.
She wasn't a nurse.
She wasn't receiving treatment.
She was the facility's senior security supervisor.
“She might not know who Patricia is,” Sebastian said.
Emily shook her head.
“She has to know.”
“Maybe. But somebody changed her name when she was six. We don't know what they told her.”
Emily looked at the childhood photograph.
“I remember playing with her.”
Her voice trembled.
“She used to cry if I left the room.”
Sebastian watched her trace the edge of the picture.
“What else?”
“She had a blue coat with wooden buttons. I used to borrow it, even though it was too small.”
A faint smile crossed her face.
“Mom would pretend to be angry because I stretched the sleeves.”
The smile disappeared.
“If she's alive, why didn't she come looking for me?”
Sebastian had no answer.
But he knew the feeling.
For eighteen years, he'd believed his father was dead.
Now he wondered how often Charles had heard about his life without choosing to contact him.
Grant interrupted.
“Boss, we checked Anna's security credentials. She trained with a private firm in Virginia. She's thirty-three.”
Sebastian frowned.
“Anna Carter should be twenty-eight.”
“Exactly.”
The room went silent.
Emily looked up.
“You said the birth certificate was amended.”
Grant nodded.
“They changed her birth year too.”
“Why?”
“We don't know.”
Sebastian studied the photograph.
The older girl beside Madeline had a narrow face, dark hair, and serious eyes.
If Anna Carter was born in 1998, she'd been six during the fire.
But a thirty-three-year-old woman would have been eleven.
Someone had deliberately altered her identity in more than one way.
“Get the original medical records,” Sebastian ordered.
“We're trying.”
“Try harder.”
Grant left them alone.
Emily turned toward Sebastian.
“Do you trust him?”
“Grant?”
“Yes.”
“With my life.”
“Then why didn't he know your father was alive?”
Sebastian considered the question.
“Because whoever planned this knew exactly how to hide things from me.”
Emily looked down at her bruised wrist.
“Madeline knew how to hurt me without leaving marks where anyone would notice.”
Sebastian's jaw tightened.
“She won't touch you again.”
“That isn't what scares me.”
“What does?”
Emily looked him directly in the eyes.
“If Madeline knows Anna is my sister, why was she so frightened when she saw my photograph?”
Sebastian didn't answer.
Instead, he reached for the desk telephone.
“Bring Madeline back.”
Emily stood.
“No.”
Sebastian looked up.
“I need answers.”
“She had her chance.”
“I agree. But I'm not calling her here for an apology.”
“Then why?”
“Because she's been hiding a person, not just a story.”
An hour later, Madeline arrived wearing a simple black sweater.
Her makeup was gone.
She looked older without it.
Emily sat beside Sebastian instead of standing behind his chair.
Madeline noticed.
For a moment, something like regret crossed her face.
Sebastian placed the school photograph on the table.
“Tell us about Anna.”
Madeline stopped walking.
“Where did you get that?”
“That's not your concern.”
“She was my sister.”
Emily's breath caught.
“Was?”
Madeline looked at her.
“Anna left home when she was nineteen.”
“Where did she go?” Sebastian asked.
“She joined a security company.”
“And now she works at my father's lake house.”
Madeline sank into a chair.
“I know.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I promised her I wouldn't.”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“Madeline, a woman believed dead is being held in that house.”
Madeline looked at Emily.
“Your mother isn't a prisoner in the way you think.”
Emily's expression hardened.
“Then why can't she leave?”
“Because she believes someone will hurt you if she does.”
“Who?”
Madeline shook her head.
“My father told me the arrangement was for her protection.”
Sebastian laughed once, without humor.
“Your father is Gregory Sterling. I've done business with him for fifteen years. He doesn't spend twelve thousand dollars a month protecting strangers.”
Madeline's eyes filled.
“You think I don't know that?”
Emily stared at her.
“Then why help him?”
Madeline took a long breath.
“Because when I was twelve, Anna came to live with us. She was frightened all the time. She wouldn't sleep unless the lights were on.”
She rubbed her hands together.
“She kept asking for a woman named Patty.”
Emily leaned forward.
“Patty was my mother.”
Madeline nodded.
“At first, my father told me Anna had been rescued from a terrible family. Then he said her mother had abandoned her.”
Emily shook her head.
“She never would have.”
“I know that now.”
Sebastian watched Madeline carefully.
“Then what happened when Anna turned nineteen?”
“She found a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“Two little girls on a dock.”
Emily's fingers tightened around the necklace.
Madeline continued.
“She recognized herself. She confronted my father, and they argued for hours.”
“What did he tell her?”
“I don't know. But afterward, Anna stopped calling him Dad.”
Madeline wiped her eyes.
“She left the next morning.”
“Yet she's working for his trust,” Sebastian said.
“I never understood that either.”
Emily spoke quietly.
“Have you seen her recently?”
Madeline hesitated.
“Last Christmas.”
“Where?”
“At the lake house.”
“Did she ask about me?”
Madeline lowered her gaze.
Emily's voice sharpened.
“Did she?”
“Yes.”
The answer struck the room.
“What did you tell her?” Emily demanded.
“That I didn't know where you were.”
Sebastian stood.
“You knew Emily worked in my home.”
“Not then.”
“When did you find out?”
“Three days ago. When I saw the photograph.”
Emily stared at her.
“And instead of telling my sister where I was, you accused me of stealing?”
Madeline began crying.
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“My father.”
Sebastian's expression hardened.
“What has Gregory been threatening you with?”
Madeline looked at him.
“He told me that if the Carter sisters ever found each other, your mother would have died for nothing.”
Sebastian felt cold.
“My mother?”
Madeline nodded.
“Margaret discovered something the night before the fire.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why did Gregory mention her?”
“Because he was there.”
Sebastian went still.
“At the lake house?”
Madeline nodded.
“The night it burned.”
For twenty-two years, official records had placed Gregory Sterling at a charity banquet in Chicago.
A verified alibi.
Sebastian remembered reading it himself.
“You're certain?”
Madeline reached into her purse.
She removed a small gold watch.
Its crystal was cracked.
“My father gave Anna this watch when she turned eighteen. She hated it because she said she'd seen it before.”
Sebastian studied the engraving.
G.S.
Gregory Sterling.
Madeline turned the watch over.
“Anna scratched something into the back before she left.”
There were three words beneath the initials.
HE LOCKED IT.
Sebastian looked up.
“Locked what?”
Madeline swallowed.
“The door.”
Emily remembered her mother's nightmares.
The green basement door.
The little girl being taken downstairs.
Sebastian picked up the watch.
“Why did Anna leave it with you?”
Madeline's hands trembled.
“She said if anything happened to her, I should give it to someone who still believed Margaret Vale was innocent.”
Sebastian stared at her.
“Innocent of what?”
Madeline looked toward Emily.
“Of setting the fire.”
Emily shook her head.
“But Sebastian's mother died in that fire.”
Madeline nodded slowly.
“And my father spent twenty-two years making sure everyone believed she started it.”
Sebastian reached for his coat.
He had heard enough.
Then Grant appeared at the doorway.
“Boss. We intercepted a delivery headed to the lake house.”
“What kind of delivery?”
“Medical supplies.”
“That's not new.”
Grant's expression was grim.
“This shipment includes a transport ventilator, cardiac monitoring equipment, and supplies for long-term sedation.”
Sebastian looked at Madeline.
“Who ordered it?”
Grant held up the invoice.
“Anna Sterling signed the authorization.”
Emily stood.
“Why would my sister order those things?”
Grant hesitated.
“Because there's another patient inside that house.”
Sebastian narrowed his eyes.
“Who?”
Grant turned the invoice around.
Under the patient identification number was a name.
MARGARET VALE.
Sebastian stared at the words.
May you like
Then he whispered:
“My mother didn't die in the fire either.”
