Chapter 8 - WHAT CHARLES TOOK FROM THE PORTRAIT
Olivia remembered because nobody had asked the right question.
Adults had focused on the key.
The blackout.
Emily.
Claire.
But Olivia had watched the portrait itself.
“The gray-haired man pulled something out,” she said.
Nicholas sat beside her.
“What did it look like?”
“Paper.”
“How big?”
Olivia held her hands several inches apart.
“Like a picture.”
Alexandra exchanged a look with Nicholas.
Mr. Bell had hidden more than the brass key.
Claire closed her eyes when Marcus confronted her.
“I didn't see Charles take anything.”
“Did you know he was at the party?”
“Yes.”
Nicholas's voice became colder.
“You didn't mention that.”
“I thought he came because of me.”
“Your father hadn't been invited.”
“I know.”
“Yet you still said nothing.”
Claire's shame deepened.
“I had been lying for so long that I didn't know which truth would destroy what.”
Nicholas stared at her.
“You understand that may be the most honest thing you've said.”
Claire nodded.
Charles's Connecticut house was empty.
But unlike earlier discoveries, there was no conveniently hidden confession.
No notebook labeled with crimes.
No final explanation.
Just ordinary rooms belonging to a wealthy elderly man who had spent decades appearing respectable.
Marcus's team found one useful detail.
Charles had canceled a morning flight to Florida.
Then he had driven north.
Toll records placed him near St. Vincent's rehabilitation center.
Bell.
Nicholas immediately called.
Mr. Bell was safe.
But a nurse reported an elderly visitor had asked whether Bell kept personal belongings in his room.
Charles was searching for something.
Nicholas finally understood.
“The missing photograph.”
“What photograph?” Emily asked.
“The one from the portrait.”
Bell had hidden a key inside the canvas because the key led to Room 614.
But perhaps the canvas itself held evidence that did not require 614.
They returned to Bell.
This time, the old man smiled when Olivia mentioned the missing paper.
“She remembered.”
Nicholas leaned closer.
“What was it?”
“A photograph Alexandra gave me.”
“Of what?”
Bell looked toward Alexandra.
“You never found out?”
She shook her head.
Bell sighed.
“It showed who was standing beside the service shaft after Mara fell.”
Nicholas's pulse changed.
“Daniel?”
“Daniel was there.”
“Who else?”
“Charles.”
“That proves he was present, not that he killed anyone.”
“Yes.”
Bell looked at Claire.
“And Vittorio.”
Nicholas froze.
“My father was dead before Alexandra's accident.”
Bell shook his head.
“Not Vittorio DeLuca.”
He looked toward Nicholas.
“Vittorio Beaumont.”
Claire's face changed.
“My grandfather?”
A new piece.
Claire's grandfather had founded the hotel and supposedly died when Claire was a teenager.
Bell looked confused.
“No. Your brother.”
Claire actually stepped backward.
“I don't have a brother.”
Bell stared at her.
Then horror slowly crossed his face.
“You don't know.”
Charles had named a son Vittorio.
A son nobody in Claire's public family history had ever mentioned.
Alexandra whispered, “Mara knew.”
Bell nodded.
Claire sat down heavily.
“My mother had a baby before me.”
Nobody interrupted her.
“She used to keep a little blue sweater in her closet. She told me it belonged to a cousin.”
Claire looked at Bell.
“Who was he?”
Bell's answer opened the final door.
“Charles's first child. Born before your parents married. He worked at the hotel under another surname.”
“What surname?”
“Vale.”
Marcus reacted.
“Peter Vale?”
Nicholas looked at him.
Marcus explained.
Peter Vale had been listed as the Beaumont's chief renovation engineer six years earlier.
He had signed elevator fourteen's safety clearance.
He had also vanished shortly after Mara's death.
Claire whispered, “My father had a son running the renovation and never told me?”
Bell nodded.
“Peter knew the defects were dangerous. Mara found proof he had falsified the inspections.”
“So Daniel confronted Mara over the financial ledger,” Nicholas said.
“And Peter confronted her over the engineering records.”
Two motives.
Two dangerous men.
One dead woman.
Alexandra pressed fingers to her temple.
“I remember another voice.”
Nicholas turned.
She had always said she remembered Daniel shouting.
Now she closed her eyes.
“Someone said, ‘You ruined everything.’”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
Her breathing changed.
“That voice was younger.”
Peter.
Claire covered her mouth.
“What happened to him?”
Marcus found the answer through employment databases.
Peter Vale had not vanished.
He had changed his name legally eight months after the incident.
He now lived in Massachusetts.
And he worked for a company familiar to everyone in the room.
DeLuca Construction.
Nicholas stared at the screen.
“What department?”
Marcus looked sick.
“Structural risk.”
Peter Beaumont—Peter Vale—had spent five years working inside Nicholas's company.
Not hiding from him.
Working three floors below him.
Emily suddenly remembered Claire's threat against her brother's apprenticeship.
Her brother worked in construction.
For DeLuca.
Peter would have access to him.
“Claire,” Emily said carefully. “When you called my brother's supervisor, who gave you the number?”
Claire stared.
“I asked Human Resources.”
“Who called you back?”
Claire's face drained of color.
“Peter Vale.”
There it was.
Peter had known Emily found Olivia's drawings.
Peter had known Claire wanted Emily gone.
Peter had access to security systems through construction contractors.
And Peter had an interest in keeping everyone focused on Daniel.
Marcus retrieved Peter's current personnel photograph.
Olivia looked at it.
Then pointed immediately.
“He was at my school.”
Nicholas's expression became lethal.
“When?”
“Sometimes.”
Alexandra pulled Olivia close.
Nicholas kept his voice steady.
“Did he ever talk to you?”
“Once.”
“What did he say?”
Olivia thought.
“He asked if I still draw elevators.”
Nobody moved.
Emily felt sick.
Nicholas stood.
“Find him.”
Marcus's phone vibrated.
Not a mysterious caller.
A company security alert.
Peter Vale had used his employee badge seven minutes earlier.
At DeLuca Construction's archival warehouse.
Nicholas knew what was stored there.
Old project files.
Including the Beaumont renovation material Nicholas's company had inherited when it acquired a subcontractor.
Peter wasn't running.
He was destroying evidence.
They reached the warehouse while smoke alarms were sounding.
Not a roaring inferno.
A contained records fire inside one storage cage.
Sprinklers had activated.
Security had detained Peter near a loading exit.
Nicholas walked toward him slowly.
Peter was in his early forties.
He looked enough like Claire that Nicholas wondered how nobody had noticed.
Peter smiled bitterly.
“So she finally told you.”
“Claire didn't know you existed.”
For the first time, Peter lost composure.
Nicholas saw it.
“She really didn't?”
“No.”
Peter looked away.
Charles had hidden even his own son from his daughter.
Nicholas held up Mara's watch.
“Why did Mara die?”
Peter stared at it.
“Daniel lost his temper.”
“Did he push her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you open the service gate?”
Silence.
Nicholas understood.
Daniel had shoved Mara.
But Peter had knowingly left a lethal opening behind her.
Both men carried responsibility.
“What did Charles take from Olivia's portrait?”
Peter's eyes narrowed.
So he knew.
Nicholas stepped closer.
“The photograph.”
Peter's smile disappeared.
“What photograph?”
“The one showing who stood beside Mara after she fell.”
Peter said nothing.
Nicholas finally asked the question that mattered.
“Where is Charles?”
Peter looked toward the wet concrete floor.
Then said:
“At the place he should have destroyed six years ago.”
“Room 614?”
Peter shook his head.
“The original elevator machinery room.”
Nicholas frowned.
Peter's voice became hollow.
“He went there because that's where Alexandra hid the one thing that can prove who changed the body identification.”
Claire whispered, “What thing?”
Peter looked at his sister.
For the first time, they truly looked like family.
“Your mother's coat.”
“The yellow coat?”
“No.”
Peter shook his head.
“Alexandra's coat.”
He looked at Nicholas.
May you like
“The one with Claire's blood on the sleeve.”
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