Chapter 5
Nobody touched the phone.
The ringtone continued inside the dark SUV.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Emily could hear Victoria breathing beside her.
The security officer ordered, “Do not answer it.”
Emily looked at the glowing screen.
GRACE.
Her mother’s name.
The fourth ring began.
Emily reached down.
The officer caught her wrist.
“Ms. Monroe.”
“If Gabriel wanted to kill me, I don’t think he’d need a phone first.”
“We don’t know what the device contains.”
“It contains an answer.”
“Or a trigger.”
Emily stopped.
The phone continued ringing.
Then the power returned.
Headlights flashed on.
Streetlights illuminated the road.
The lead SUV remained stopped ahead.
Agents emerged.
The phone stopped.
A message appeared.
YOU’RE STILL LETTING OTHER PEOPLE CHOOSE FOR YOU.
Emily’s stomach tightened.
Victoria whispered, “He can see us.”
The security officer immediately covered the interior camera.
Emily looked around.
“Where did the phone come from?”
Nobody knew.
They evacuated the vehicle.
Bomb technicians inspected the device.
No explosive.
No obvious tracking system.
Only a prepaid phone.
One incoming number.
Untraceable.
Agent Mitchell arrived from the lead SUV.
“A tree fell across the road.”
Charles, riding in another vehicle, came toward Emily.
“We’re turning around.”
“No.”
Charles stared at her.
“Emily.”
“If we turn around every time he scares us, he decides where I go.”
“This isn’t pride.”
“Neither is this.”
Emily held up the phone inside an evidence bag.
“He wants me frightened.”
“You should be frightened.”
“I am.”
She looked at Charles.
“That doesn’t mean I stop.”
Richard joined them.
“The property is eight miles away.”
Mitchell looked toward the blocked road.
“We take the alternate route.”
Charles objected.
Emily overruled him.
They reached the Ashford estate just before dawn.
It was less a house than a forgotten mansion.
Gray stone.
Dark windows.
Overgrown gardens.
A long driveway curving through bare trees.
Victoria stared through the glass.
“I haven’t been here since Mom died.”
Emily looked at her.
“This belonged to her?”
“My grandparents.”
Richard confirmed it.
“Catherine spent summers here.”
The caretaker met them at the entrance.
Arthur Bell was seventy-three and walked with a cane.
When he saw Emily, the color left his face.
“My God.”
Richard noticed.
“You know her?”
Arthur stared.
“You look exactly like Grace.”
Emily stepped closer.
“You knew my mother?”
Arthur’s eyes moved to Richard.
Then Charles.
“I knew both girls.”
Victoria frowned.
“Both?”
“Your mother and Grace Harrington.”
Arthur opened the door.
Inside, the house smelled of wood smoke and old books.
Security spread through every floor.
Agent Mitchell questioned Arthur while Emily wandered into the drawing room.
Photographs covered one wall.
Catherine Ashford as a child.
As a teenager.
At college.
At her wedding.
Then Emily saw another photograph.
Catherine and Grace.
Both around twenty.
Laughing beside a lake.
Emily lifted the frame.
Victoria appeared beside her.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Emily studied her mother’s young face.
Happy.
Unafraid.
“Neither have I.”
Victoria touched the frame.
“Mom kept all her photographs.”
“Apparently not all.”
Arthur entered behind them.
“Some were removed after Mrs. Ashford died.”
“By whom?” Victoria asked.
Arthur looked at Richard.
Victoria’s face hardened.
“Dad.”
Richard entered slowly.
“I took them.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“There it is again.”
Emily looked at Richard.
“What was in them?”
“Grace. Gabriel. Your mother.”
Victoria stared.
“You erased Mom’s past.”
“I tried to erase Gabriel from your future.”
“How did that work?”
Richard looked away.
Arthur cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Ashford left something.”
Everyone turned.
Richard frowned.
“What?”
Arthur walked toward an old cabinet.
“She instructed me never to give it to you.”
Victoria stared.
“To Dad?”
“Yes.”
“Who was it for?”
Arthur looked at Emily.
“Grace’s daughter.”
The room went still.
Emily whispered, “Me?”
Arthur nodded.
“She said if Grace’s daughter ever came to this house, I was to give her the blue box.”
Richard looked furious.
“Catherine never told me.”
“That was intentional.”
Arthur removed a key from beneath his shirt.
“Follow me.”
The blue box was hidden inside the old wine cellar.
Not in a safe.
Behind a loose stone.
Arthur removed it carefully.
Emily knelt.
The box was wooden.
Painted dark blue.
Her name was carved underneath.
Not Emily Monroe.
Emily Grace Harrington.
She stared.
“My mother never used Harrington for me.”
Arthur said quietly, “Catherine did.”
Emily opened the lid.
Inside were cassette tapes.
Letters.
Photographs.
And a tiny stuffed rabbit.
Emily stopped breathing.
She picked up the toy.
Its left ear was missing.
“I had this.”
Charles moved closer.
“What?”
“When I was little.”
Emily turned it over.
The initials E.M. were stitched beneath the paw.
“I remember Mom taking it away because it was torn.”
Arthur nodded.
“She brought it here.”
“Why?”
“She said it was important.”
Emily squeezed the rabbit.
Something hard sat inside.
Michael carefully opened an old seam.
A small metal key fell onto the table.
Richard whispered, “A key to what?”
Arthur looked surprised.
“I don’t know.”
Agent Mitchell cataloged the evidence.
Emily chose one cassette.
A label was written in Grace’s handwriting.
FOR EMILY.
Victoria found an old tape player in the study.
They placed it on the table.
Charles stood behind Emily.
Richard remained near the doorway.
Victoria sat across from her.
Emily pressed PLAY.
Static.
Then her mother’s voice filled the room.
Emily stopped breathing.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Twenty years disappeared.
Emily covered her mouth.
Grace sounded alive.
Warm.
Young.
“I don’t know how old you’ll be if you ever hear this.”
Emily cried silently.
“I hope you’re very old.”
A weak laugh came through the tape.
“I hope I’m sitting beside you complaining that you waited too long to listen.”
Charles turned away.
Grace continued.
“But if I’m not…”
A pause.
“I need you to understand something.”
Emily held the rabbit against her chest.
“You were never the reason I was afraid.”
Her voice trembled on the recording.
“You were the reason I became brave.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“I made mistakes.”
Grace took a breath.
“I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.”
Gabriel.
“I also pushed away people who loved me because I was angry with them.”
Charles silently cried.
“But the worst thing fear does is convince us we are alone.”
Emily opened her eyes.
“Daniel taught me I wasn’t.”
Emily leaned forward.
Grace’s voice softened.
“Daniel is your father.”
Richard looked at Charles.
Emily’s heart pounded.
“Maybe not in the way blood tests define the word.”
Silence filled the room.
“But he chose you before you were born.”
Emily began crying harder.
“He knew everything.”
Everything.
“He knew who Gabriel was.”
Emily stared at the recorder.
“He knew what Gabriel might have done.”
Richard closed his eyes.
“And he chose us anyway.”
Emily wiped her face.
Grace continued.
“If anyone ever tells you Daniel Monroe was less than your father, don’t believe them.”
Emily nodded as if her mother could see.
“I won’t.”
“Gabriel may tell you otherwise.”
The room stiffened.
“He will use blood like a weapon.”
Emily looked at the others.
“He will tell you that biology gives him rights.”
Grace’s voice hardened.
“It does not.”
Victoria’s eyes filled with tears too.
“Love is not ownership.”
A long pause followed.
Then Grace whispered, “And Gabriel never understood that.”
Emily gripped the toy.
“There are things I haven’t told Charles.”
Her grandfather looked toward the recorder.
“Things I haven’t told Daniel.”
Richard frowned.
“And things I haven’t told Richard.”
Richard stepped closer.
“I don’t know who will still be standing beside you when you hear this.”
Grace inhaled slowly.
“But someone will be lying.”
Everyone froze.
Emily stared at the recorder.
Grace continued.
“One of the men I trusted is helping Gabriel.”
Richard looked at Charles.
Charles looked at Richard.
Emily’s heart raced.
“I don’t know which one.”
Static crackled.
“I found evidence connected to both of them.”
Charles whispered, “No.”
Richard shook his head.
Grace continued.
“Charles has accounts he never told me about.”
Charles stared at the recorder.
“Richard has meetings he refuses to explain.”
Richard looked pale.
“I don’t know which one Gabriel compromised.”
Emily turned between them.
“Maybe neither.”
Grace’s recorded voice answered as if she had heard her.
“But if something happens to me, Emily…”
Silence.
Then:
“Trust what people do when they think no one is watching.”
The tape clicked.
Ended.
No one spoke.
Emily slowly stood.
Charles looked devastated.
“Emily, I never helped Gabriel.”
Richard said, “Neither did I.”
Emily looked at both men.
“I believe one of you.”
Their faces changed.
She placed the tape on the table.
“But I don’t know which.”
Victoria looked at the remaining tapes.
“There are twelve more.”
Agent Mitchell reached for one.
Emily stopped her.
“No.”
Mitchell frowned.
“This is evidence.”
“It’s also my mother.”
“We need to examine it.”
“You will.”
Emily looked at Charles and Richard.
“But they leave first.”
Charles stared.
“Emily.”
“Both of you.”
Richard nodded almost immediately.
Charles did not.
“If Grace believed I—”
“She didn’t know.”
“I can explain the accounts.”
“Then explain them to the FBI.”
Charles’s face fell.
Emily hated how much that hurt.
But she remembered her mother’s words.
Trust what people do when they think no one is watching.
Charles finally nodded.
“I’ll go.”
Richard followed him.
Victoria remained.
Emily looked at her.
“You too.”
Victoria blinked.
“My mother made these recordings possible.”
“And your father may be involved.”
“So may your grandfather.”
“That’s exactly why I need nobody connected to them in the room.”
Victoria looked hurt.
Then she nodded.
“You’re right.”
She walked toward the door.
Before leaving, she stopped.
“Emily?”
“Yes?”
“I really am sorry.”
Emily looked at the woman who had humiliated her only hours earlier.
“I know.”
Victoria waited.
Emily added, “I’m just not ready to make that enough.”
Victoria nodded.
Then left.
Agent Mitchell locked the door.
Only Emily, Michael, and two federal technicians remained.
Emily chose another tape.
No label.
She pressed PLAY.
Static.
A man’s voice appeared.
Not Grace.
Daniel.
“If you’re hearing this, Grace is probably gone.”
Emily’s knees nearly gave out.
Daniel continued.
“And if Grace is gone, Gabriel will eventually come for Emily.”
Emily stared at the recorder.
“I agreed to something today that Grace can never know.”
Michael looked at Mitchell.
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“I agreed to take Gabriel’s money.”
Emily closed her eyes.
“I’m going to take every payment.”
May you like
A pause.
“And use it to destroy him.”
