Chapter 3 - THE LETTER HER FATHER HID FOR TWENTY YEARS
Catherine called her mother six times.
No answer.
On the seventh attempt, the call went straight to voicemail.
“I'm going to her house,” Catherine announced.
Adrienne reached for his coat.
“I'll drive.”
“No.”
“You don't understand what may be happening.”
“Then explain it!”
Her voice cracked across the gallery.
“My mother just told me my father was connected to your grandmother's death. Now someone is at her door, and you're standing here looking like you expected this.”
Adrienne didn't defend himself.
He turned toward Evelyn.
“Call the local police. Ask for a welfare check.”
Then he looked at Catherine.
“You can drive yourself. I'll follow at a distance if that's what you prefer.”
She wanted to refuse.
But she was frightened.
And she wasn't foolish enough to pretend otherwise.
“Fine. But you don't go near my mother unless she agrees.”
Twenty-three minutes later, Catherine pulled into the driveway of her mother's modest house outside Hudson.
The front door stood open.
Her heart nearly stopped.
“Mom!”
She ran inside.
A ceramic bowl lay shattered near the entrance.
The living room rug had been pulled crooked.
One drawer of the hallway cabinet stood open.
“Mom!”
“Catherine?”
Laura appeared from the kitchen, pale and shaking.
Catherine rushed toward her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No. No, honey.”
“What happened?”
Laura sank into a chair.
“A man came asking about the painting.”
“What man?”
“I didn't recognize him.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“He said he was collecting an old debt.”
Catherine knelt beside her.
“What debt?”
Laura covered her face.
“Oh, Catherine. I thought this was over.”
Adrienne appeared in the doorway.
He remained outside.
“Mrs. Turner?”
Laura looked up.
When she saw him, her expression transformed.
Not into surprise.
Into recognition.
“You look like Harrison,” she whispered.
Adrienne stiffened.
“You knew my grandfather?”
Laura closed her eyes.
“Unfortunately.”
Catherine sat beside her.
“Mom, please. Start at the beginning.”
Laura clasped her daughter's hands.
“Your father was thirty-one when the Mercer family hired him. He was talented, but he wasn't well known. Harrison Mercer offered him more money for one restoration than he'd earned the previous year.”
“What was he restoring?”
Laura looked toward Adrienne.
“The Last Summer.”
Catherine felt a chill.
“Then the painting was already damaged?”
“Yes. Someone had slashed the lower edge.”
Lydia had noticed that repair.
Catherine remembered the awkward stitching beneath the frame.
“What happened?”
“Your father discovered something during his examination.”
“What?”
Laura hesitated.
“A second painting.”
Adrienne moved into the room.
“Underneath?”
Laura nodded.
“Daniel believed Elias Vance had painted over an earlier portrait. He suspected the landscape concealed something important.”
Catherine remembered her father's warning.
Don't trust the first thing your eyes tell you.
“Did he uncover it?”
“Partially.”
“What did he see?”
Laura's voice dropped.
“A little girl.”
Catherine stared.
“A child?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Your father never told me her name.”
Adrienne's expression grew troubled.
“My grandmother had one son. My father.”
Laura shook her head.
“That's what the public records said.”
A silence followed.
Then Adrienne slowly sat down.
“Are you suggesting my grandmother had another child?”
“I don't know,” Laura whispered. “I only know Daniel came home terrified one night. He said the portrait showed Rose holding a baby, and someone had ordered him to destroy it.”
“Who?”
Laura looked toward the hallway.
“Harrison Mercer.”
Adrienne's face hardened.
“My grandfather loved Rose.”
Laura met his eyes.
“Maybe. But love doesn't excuse what he did.”
Catherine's hands trembled.
“What happened to Dad?”
“Harrison accused him of stealing an expensive piece from the collection. The police questioned him. No charges were filed, but word spread that he was dishonest.”
Catherine felt anger rising.
Her father had spent years accepting small jobs and pretending he was content.
He had never told her why.
“He lost everything because of them?”
“He nearly did.”
“Why didn't he defend himself?”
“Because Harrison threatened someone he loved.”
“Who?”
Laura looked away.
Catherine waited.
“Mom.”
Laura began crying again.
“You were only three.”
Catherine's breath caught.
Her father had been threatened through her.
Adrienne stood.
“I had no idea.”
Laura looked at him coldly.
“Your family made certain nobody did.”
A police car arrived outside.
While Laura spoke with the officer, Catherine examined the hallway.
The stranger hadn't taken money.
He hadn't touched the television or jewelry box.
But one old photograph was missing from the wall.
It had shown Daniel Turner standing beside a younger woman outside a cottage.
Catherine remembered the photograph clearly.
She had always assumed the woman was a client.
“Mom, where's Dad's lake photograph?”
Laura turned sharply.
“What?”
“The photograph beside the stairs.”
Her mother hurried over.
An empty nail protruded from the wallpaper.
Laura gripped the doorframe.
“He took it.”
“Who was in that photograph?”
Laura closed her eyes.
“Rose.”
Adrienne approached.
“Rose Mercer?”
“Yes.”
He stared at the empty space.
“Why did Daniel have a photograph of my grandmother?”
Laura didn't answer.
Instead, she crossed the room and opened an old cedar cabinet.
From beneath a stack of folded blankets, she removed a small wooden box.
Catherine recognized it immediately.
Her father's restoration tools.
“I kept one thing separate,” Laura said.
She opened the box.
Inside lay a narrow envelope, a tarnished brass key, and a photograph folded in half.
The envelope carried Catherine's name.
In her father's handwriting.
Her throat tightened.
“Mom…”
“He wrote it during his last winter. He made me promise not to give it to you unless the painting returned.”
Catherine carefully unfolded the letter.
My dearest Catherine,
If you're reading this, the lake has found its way back to us.
I tried to protect you by staying silent. I was wrong.
The painting isn't merely valuable. It is proof that someone in the Mercer family stole a life.
The first truth is beneath the cottage window.
The second is in the place where Rose kept her happiest memories.
But the third truth is the one I'm most ashamed of.
I knew who took her child.
Catherine stopped breathing.
Her father's words blurred.
She continued.
I helped hide the evidence.
I told myself I was protecting an innocent person. Perhaps I was. But another family suffered because I remained silent.
If you choose to uncover the truth, do not trust anyone simply because they offer you money.
And please, Catherine, forgive me for what I never had the courage to explain.
Love, Dad.
Catherine lowered the paper.
For years, she had believed her father was the most honorable man she'd known.
Now she wasn't sure what to believe.
Adrienne stared at the letter.
“My grandmother had a child nobody told us about.”
Laura nodded.
“And Daniel knew where that child went.”
Catherine unfolded the photograph.
It showed Rose Mercer seated beside the lake.
A little girl stood beside her.
The child's face was partly hidden beneath a wide summer hat.
On the back, in faded blue ink, someone had written:
Rose and Lily. August 18.
Adrienne's voice broke.
“Lily?”
Laura gasped.
Catherine looked up.
Her mother had gone completely white.
“Mom?”
Laura gripped the table.
“That's impossible.”
“What is?”
Laura stared at the photograph.
“Lily was the name my mother used before she was adopted.”
A terrible silence followed.
Catherine looked from her mother to Adrienne.
Then back to the little girl in the photograph.
May you like
And for the first time, she understood why her father had never wanted her to find the painting.
The missing child might have been her own grandmother.
