Chapter 5 - The Woman Behind the Green Door
“My mother is alive?”
Sebastian took the medical invoice from Grant.
Margaret Vale.
Her name was printed clearly beneath a patient identification number.
For a moment, he couldn't move.
He'd spent twenty-two years believing his mother had died trying to escape a fire.
He remembered the funeral.
The black flowers.
His father's shaking hands.
The sealed casket.
And the terrible silence inside their house afterward.
Now someone was purchasing medical equipment in Margaret's name.
Emily stepped beside him.
“Sebastian?”
He barely heard her.
Grant pointed to the invoice.
“We need to confirm whether the patient is actually Margaret. Medical supply companies sometimes use outdated names or billing identities.”
Sebastian nodded slowly.
He wanted to believe.
But he'd already been fooled by one death.
He wouldn't allow hope to make him careless.
“Find the ordering physician.”
“Working on it.”
“And get the delivery records from the last six months.”
Grant left.
Madeline remained seated.
Sebastian turned toward her.
“Did you know?”
She shook her head.
“I heard there was another patient. My father wouldn't tell me who.”
“You were engaged to me.”
“I know.”
“You let me visit my mother's grave every Christmas.”
Madeline lowered her eyes.
“I never knew for certain.”
“That's not an answer.”
She began crying again.
Sebastian felt no comfort in her tears.
He remembered all the times she'd stood beside him at the cemetery.
All the times she'd placed white roses beneath Margaret's name.
He had mistaken her silence for sympathy.
“Leave,” he said.
Madeline looked up.
“Sebastian—”
“Leave.”
She stood slowly.
Before going, she turned toward Emily.
“Anna always wears a blue bracelet. It's braided from thread. She made it when she was little.”
Emily blinked.
“I remember.”
“She told me her sister made the matching one.”
Emily instinctively reached beneath her sleeve.
Around her wrist was a faded blue braided bracelet.
She had worn it since childhood.
Even after the knot loosened, she'd carefully repaired it.
Madeline stared.
“You still have it.”
Emily pulled back her sleeve.
“I never knew who gave it to me.”
Madeline swallowed.
“Anna has the other one.”
Then she left.
Sebastian looked at the bracelet.
It was the first piece of proof that the two girls had shared a life before someone separated them.
And he understood what Emily was feeling.
Somewhere in that house might be a mother she thought she'd buried.
A sister she thought she'd imagined.
And perhaps his own mother.
He placed a hand on her shoulder.
“We're going.”
Emily looked up.
“Together?”
“Together.”
Two hours later, a black SUV followed a quiet road along Lake St. Clair.
Snow lay across the lawns of expensive waterfront properties.
Bare trees crowded the roadside.
The lake stretched into the darkness beyond them.
Grant drove.
Sebastian sat beside him.
Emily rode in the back seat, holding the silver necklace.
They stopped half a mile from the lake house.
The property looked nothing like Sebastian remembered.
The white siding had been replaced with dark stone.
A tall security fence surrounded the grounds.
Cameras watched the driveway.
But the old wooden dock remained.
Emily pressed her hand against the window.
“I remember that dock.”
Sebastian turned.
“You're sure?”
She nodded.
“There used to be a little bell at the end. Mom rang it when dinner was ready.”
Sebastian remembered it too.
His mother used to complain that the bell frightened the ducks.
The memory made his throat tighten.
Grant checked his phone.
“Two guards near the front gate. One patrolling the eastern side. Another inside the garage.”
Sebastian reached for the door.
Grant stopped him.
“Boss, we can't simply walk in.”
“It's my family's house.”
“Legally, it belongs to the Sterling trust.”
Sebastian looked at him.
“You think Gregory Sterling wants a legal argument?”
“No. I think he wants you angry enough to make a mistake.”
Sebastian sat back.
Grant was right.
Then Emily noticed something.
A faint light moved behind a second-floor curtain.
The curtain shifted.
For half a second, a woman stood at the window.
Dark hair.
A gray sweater.
A blue bracelet on her wrist.
Emily leaned forward.
“That's her.”
Sebastian looked.
The woman disappeared.
Emily opened the car door.
“Emily, wait.”
She stepped into the snow.
“Anna!”
Her voice carried across the grounds.
Grant swore softly.
A security light snapped on.
The front gate began opening.
Sebastian moved immediately, catching up with Emily.
A woman emerged from the house.
She was tall, with dark hair pulled tightly behind her head.
She wore black pants and a navy coat.
She walked toward them with the careful confidence of someone trained to expect danger.
When she reached the gate, she stopped.
Her eyes settled on Emily.
For several seconds, she didn't speak.
Then she whispered:
“Emmy?”
Emily covered her mouth.
Nobody had called her that since childhood.
“Anna?”
The woman closed her eyes.
A tear slid down her cheek.
“I told them you weren't supposed to come.”
Emily stepped closer.
“I thought you were dead.”
Anna's jaw tightened.
“I know.”
“Mom is here?”
Anna glanced toward Sebastian.
“Yes.”
Emily started forward.
Anna raised her hand.
“Wait.”
“She's my mother.”
“I know.”
“Then let me see her.”
Anna looked toward the house.
“You don't understand what she's been doing.”
Sebastian stepped closer.
“Then explain it.”
Anna studied him.
“You look like Margaret.”
Sebastian felt something shift inside his chest.
“You knew my mother?”
Anna nodded.
“She saved me.”
“Where is she?”
Anna's expression changed.
She looked away.
“Anna,” Sebastian said, “is Margaret alive?”
The woman hesitated.
Then she answered.
“Yes.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
For one moment, the world seemed to disappear beneath his feet.
When he opened them, Anna was watching him with pity.
“But she isn't the woman you remember.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was badly injured during the fire. She's lived with the consequences ever since.”
Emily stepped forward.
“Why didn't anyone tell us?”
Anna swallowed.
“Because Charles and Gregory made sure she couldn't.”
Sebastian looked toward the house.
“I want to see her.”
Anna shook her head.
“Not yet.”
“Anna—”
“If you walk inside without understanding what happened, you'll destroy the only chance we have of getting her out safely.”
Sebastian stopped.
“What are you talking about?”
Anna looked at the guards.
Then she lowered her voice.
“The medication records have been altered. Gregory controls the doctors. Charles controls the money. I've been collecting evidence for months.”
Grant stepped forward.
“You're investigating them?”
Anna nodded.
“I took the security job because it was the only way to reach Patricia and Margaret without getting thrown off the property.”
Emily stared at her.
“You weren't keeping Mom prisoner.”
“No.”
Anna's voice broke.
“I've been trying to get her out.”
“Then why send that message telling Sebastian to come alone?”
Anna looked confused.
“What message?”
Sebastian showed her his phone.
Anna read it.
Her face went white.
“I didn't send that.”
She looked toward the house.
Then at the gate controls.
“Someone wanted you here.”
Suddenly, the security lights inside the property turned red.
An alarm sounded.
Anna grabbed Emily's arm.
“We have to move.”
From inside the house came a man's voice over the intercom.
“Anna, step away from the gate.”
She froze.
The voice continued.
“Sebastian, you always were your mother's son.”
Sebastian stared toward the house.
His father's voice.
Charles Vale.
May you like
Then Charles said something that made Anna recoil.
“Bring Emily inside, or Margaret doesn't receive her medication tonight.”
