Chapter 6 - WHAT ELEANOR KNEW BEFORE SHE DIED
“Evidence of what?”
I looked at the cracked silver watch in Alessandro's hand.
He stood motionless beside the cedar box.
“Eight years ago,” he said quietly, “Daniel Mercer handled the finances for one of my father's companies.”
I waited.
“Not the legitimate businesses.”
That was the first time Alessandro had ever acknowledged that part of his world to me.
He glanced toward the closed library door.
“My father built his empire in ways I won't defend. After he died, I spent years separating the companies that could operate legally from the ones that couldn't.”
“And Daniel?”
“He was supposed to help.”
Alessandro placed the watch on the desk.
“Instead, money disappeared. Not just company money. Funds belonging to employees' families and people we were obligated to compensate.”
“Did you discover who took it?”
“I thought I did.”
“Daniel?”
Alessandro shook his head.
“I suspected him. But the records pointed toward another manager. I trusted the records.”
He looked at the watch.
“Eleanor never did.”
I studied the deep scratches across its back.
“She wrote that warning on the photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe her?”
Alessandro didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
That afternoon, Victoria requested a private conversation.
Alessandro agreed, but insisted they meet in the library with Julian present.
I brought coffee, then started toward the door.
“Hannah,” Alessandro said, “please stay.”
Victoria's expression tightened.
“Must she be involved in every conversation now?”
Alessandro looked at me.
“She found my son injured. She helped recover Eleanor's belongings. And Benjamin trusts her.”
Victoria looked away.
Then she sat.
“I want to explain Daniel.”
Alessandro folded his arms.
“Go ahead.”
Victoria stared at her hands.
“Last year, Julian told me his company was in trouble. Daniel approached us with a solution.”
“By taking money from my family?”
“No. Not at first.”
She swallowed.
“He said Eleanor had left valuable paintings and that selling some could settle Julian's debt without affecting your finances.”
“Why would that matter?”
Victoria's eyes filled.
“Because I didn't want you to think I was marrying you for money.”
The room grew quiet.
She continued.
“I've spent my entire adult life being told that women like me are only useful if we marry well. My father lost his business when I was twenty-two. My mother never forgave him.”
Julian lowered his head.
“Victoria supported me through college after that.”
She nodded.
“I promised myself I'd never be financially helpless again.”
Alessandro watched her.
“That explains why you were afraid. It doesn't explain Benjamin.”
Victoria wiped her cheeks.
“Daniel said the paintings were keeping him from recovering. He showed me articles about complicated grief. He said a residential program might help.”
Margaret's earlier account came back to me.
At first, Victoria had asked about counseling.
Then Daniel intervened.
“He told you to send Benjamin away?” I asked.
Victoria hesitated.
“He suggested it.”
“And you agreed.”
“I thought Alessandro would eventually see the benefits.”
I shook my head.
“You threatened Benjamin with destroying his mother's paintings.”
Victoria flinched.
“I know.”
Her voice dropped.
“I said something terrible.”
Alessandro leaned forward.
“Was it one terrible sentence, Victoria? Or did you repeat it until he believed you?”
She began crying again.
This time, she didn't deny it.
“I wanted him to stop rejecting me.”
The room was silent.
Then Victoria whispered, “And I hated myself every time he looked at me like I was stealing his mother.”
Alessandro's expression softened with sadness, but not forgiveness.
“You weren't stealing Eleanor's place until you tried to erase it.”
Victoria covered her face.
“I know that now.”
Julian reached toward his sister.
She pulled away.
“I don't need comfort, Julian.”
Then she looked at Alessandro.
“Daniel has something else.”
Alessandro went still.
“What?”
“The missing part of Eleanor's letter.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
Victoria nodded toward the cedar box.
“I found the letter months ago. It said something about Daniel and a transfer of money. I showed him because I thought it might explain why Eleanor kept his photograph.”
“What did he do?”
“He took it.”
Alessandro stood.
“You gave my wife's private letter to the man she warned me about?”
Victoria's voice broke.
“I didn't know what it meant!”
“But you knew she didn't trust him.”
“She'd been dead for years, Alessandro. Daniel said she had misunderstood the accounts.”
Alessandro looked away.
Victoria continued.
“He told me the letter could destroy everything you've built. He said if the wrong people saw it, Benjamin might lose his inheritance.”
That stopped him.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He claimed Eleanor had discovered an account connected to your father's companies. He said money had been put aside for Benjamin.”
Alessandro slowly turned.
“What account?”
Victoria shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then she added something that made the room feel colder.
“Daniel said Eleanor had hidden proof of where the money came from. And that the evidence was probably with her paintings.”
That evening, Alessandro called an independent forensic accountant named Rebecca Shaw.
She had worked with his legitimate companies years earlier and had refused a substantial contract after discovering irregularities in a subsidiary.
Alessandro trusted her because she had once told him something he didn't want to hear.
Rebecca arrived with a plain canvas bag and a notebook.
After listening to everything, she examined Daniel's silver watch.
“Was it ever opened?” she asked.
Alessandro frowned.
“Not that I know of.”
Rebecca turned it over.
“These older watches sometimes had removable case backs.”
She used a small tool from her bag.
The metal cover loosened.
Inside was the delicate mechanism.
And beneath it, tucked against the back plate, was a narrow strip of folded paper.
Alessandro stared.
Rebecca carefully removed it.
The paper contained a handwritten number, a bank name, and a date.
The date was from eight years earlier.
Rebecca studied it.
Then she looked up.
“This appears to be an account reference.”
Alessandro leaned forward.
“Whose account?”
“I'll need to verify that.”
She copied the details.
Then she examined the scratched word on the watch.
STOLEN.
“Whoever wrote that wasn't describing the watch,” she said.
I looked up.
“What do you mean?”
Rebecca pointed to the account reference.
“They may have been describing the money.”
Alessandro sat down.
For the first time, I understood what Eleanor might have been doing.
She hadn't merely suspected Daniel.
She had preserved clues.
A watch.
A photograph.
A letter.
And a painting she never wanted her son to lose.
The next morning, Alessandro took Benjamin to his school for the first time in months.
He walked him to the classroom.
Met his teacher.
And promised to return at three.
When he came home, he asked me to help restore the art room.
We rehung the sailboat.
The yellow bicycle.
The sleeping puppy.
Benjamin chose where each painting belonged.
Then he noticed the empty place above the bookshelf.
“That's where our family picture goes.”
Alessandro knelt.
“And it will.”
Benjamin touched the wall.
“Mommy said the picture had a secret.”
My breath caught.
Alessandro looked up.
“What secret?”
Benjamin shrugged.
“She said there was something behind us.”
I frowned.
“Behind the people in the painting?”
He nodded.
“Behind our house.”
Alessandro stared at me.
The portrait showed the family's first home.
A white house.
Green shutters.
A little red mailbox.
That evening, we enlarged Arthur Bell's photograph of the painting.
I studied the background.
Then I noticed something I hadn't seen before.
Behind the white house, almost hidden beneath painted trees, stood a smaller building.
A carriage house.
Its door was blue.
And above that door was a tiny number.
17\.
Alessandro leaned closer.
His face drained of color.
“That isn't part of our old property.”
I looked at him.
“Then what is it?”
He stared at the number.
“It's the address of Eleanor's first art studio.”
He stood abruptly.
“Daniel wasn't looking for the painting.”
I felt my heartbeat quicken.
May you like
Alessandro looked at the silver watch.
“He was looking for whatever Eleanor left in that studio.”
