Chapter 9 - The Woman in Vermont
They left before sunrise.
Damian took Tessa, Grant, and two security officers. Beatrice stayed behind under guard, furious about it but too weak to travel.
St. Agnes sat at the edge of a frozen Vermont lake, a private long-term care facility hidden behind stone walls and pine trees.
The administrator met them in the lobby.
“We don’t have a patient named Evelyn Vale.”
Damian placed the bracelet on the desk.
The woman’s face changed.
“Try room 17.”
She did not ask how he knew.
That frightened him more than denial.
Room 17 was at the end of a locked corridor.
A woman sat beside the window with silver hair falling over one shoulder.
She looked small.
Too small to be the giant in Damian’s childhood memory.
He stopped in the doorway.
“Mom?”
The woman did not turn.
Tessa touched his arm.
Damian crossed the room slowly.
“Evelyn?”
Her hand moved.
Then her face turned toward him.
Time collapsed.
The eyes were older.
The cheekbones sharper.
But they were hers.
Damian forgot how to stand.
He dropped to one knee beside the chair.
“It’s me.”
Evelyn studied him for several seconds.
Then her fingers touched the scar above his eyebrow - the one he got at age nine falling from Beatrice’s apple tree.
“Dami?”
His breath broke.
Nobody had called him that since he was twelve.
He lowered his head into her lap.
For the first time in decades, Damian Vale cried without trying to hide it.
Tessa turned away to give them privacy.
Evelyn’s memory came in fragments. She remembered Beatrice. She remembered Rosewood. She remembered being drugged.
She remembered Adrian.
When Damian asked about his father, fear crossed her face.
“Dead?” she asked.
“Yes. Twelve years ago.”
She exhaled.
Then she gripped Damian’s wrist.
“Adrian?”
“Alive.”
Her fear returned instantly.
“Then we have to go.”
Damian frowned. “Go where?”
She leaned close.
“Home.”
“Why?”
“Because the proof was never under the chapel.”
Damian stared at her.
“Mom, your letter said it was.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“So Adrian would keep digging in the wrong place.”
She touched his chest.
“The real proof is in the house.”
Damian’s phone rang.
Grant answered first.
His expression hardened.
“What happened?” Damian asked.
Grant lowered the phone.
“The estate called.”
Tessa’s face went pale.
“Beatrice?”
May you like
Grant nodded.
“She’s gone.”
