Chapter 9 - Laura
I did not go alone.
I went without Daniel, but Marcus followed from a distance.
There are limits to how reckless grief is allowed to make you.
The address led to a church basement in Evanston.
The lights were off except for one lamp near a folding table.
A woman stood beside it.
For twenty-two years, I had imagined my mother frozen at thirty-six.
The woman in front of me was fifty-eight.
Her dark hair was streaked with gray. Her face was thinner. The scar along her jaw pulled slightly when she smiled.
“Elena.”
One word.
My whole body started shaking.
I did not run into her arms.
I wanted to.
I also wanted to scream.
“You were alive.”
Tears filled her eyes. “Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me grow up without you.”
“I know.”
My voice broke. “Stop saying you know.”
She flinched.
Good.
I had spent my childhood thinking death had taken her. Learning that she had chosen absence, even for survival, created a kind of pain I did not have a name for.
She pulled out a chair but I stayed standing.
“Thomas Whitmore tried to kill me,” she said. “Your grandmother helped me disappear.”
“Why not take me?”
“Because Thomas knew you existed. A woman with a child is easier to find. Margaret believed he would leave you alone if he thought I was dead.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
Until now.
Laura explained the offshore scheme. Thomas had diverted hotel funds for years. Charles discovered part of it, tried to stop him quietly, and signed my grandmother’s rescue agreement when the company nearly collapsed.
“But Charles protected the family name,” Laura said. “He never exposed Thomas.”
“So he is guilty too.”
“Of cowardice. Concealment. Maybe financial crimes. But not my crash.”
I thought about Charles humiliating me in the ballroom.
A cruel man could still be innocent of attempted murder.
Life was inconvenient that way.
“Why are you watching the house?”
“Because Grant found out you inherited it.”
My blood ran cold.
Laura reached across the table.
“He believes the original evidence is hidden inside Kingsley House.”
“What evidence?”
She looked toward the dark hallway.
“The ledger Thomas kept. Names, payments, politicians, bankers, everything.”
A floorboard creaked behind us.
Laura’s face changed.
May you like
“Get down.”
The basement window exploded inward.
