Chapter 9 - Margaret’s Secret
Margaret stood outside the greenhouse.
Annie's pulse jumped.
Then Margaret opened the door.
“Why are you all staring at me?”
Nobody answered.
Evelyn showed her Daniel's message.
Margaret sat down.
“I wondered when this would happen.”
“What?”
“When someone discovered what I did.”
Thirteen years earlier, Margaret had helped Catherine hide evidence.
She also helped Daniel.
After Catherine died, Margaret removed one crucial item before police searched the room.
“What item?” Annie asked.
“A key.”
“To what?”
Margaret looked at Evelyn.
“Your mother's deposit box.”
The box was held under another name.
Margaret had kept the key hidden for thirteen years because Catherine instructed her to give it only to Evelyn when Evelyn was ready.
“You watched me spend thirteen years thinking I was crazy,” Evelyn said.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You don't get to decide that!”
“No.”
Margaret's voice broke.
“I know.”
Evelyn walked away.
Annie didn't follow.
Some wounds needed space.
Charles arranged access to the deposit box.
Inside they found one envelope and a videotape.
The recording showed Catherine sitting in a hotel room.
“If Evelyn is watching this, I failed.”
Evelyn covered her mouth.
Catherine explained everything.
Robert's theft.
Frank Ross's corruption.
Daniel's decision to help her.
And the night of her death.
“I am meeting Robert tonight. Daniel will be nearby. If Robert confesses, we'll have enough.”
The recording ended.
No confession.
But the envelope contained a handwritten address.
An abandoned Whitmore property.
Adrian recognized it.
An old textile factory.
Police searched it.
Empty.
But blood was found in one room.
Fresh blood.
Daniel's.
They also found a chair with restraints.
He had been held there.
Then Annie spotted words scratched into the concrete.
R H / FRIDAY / 10.
Friday.
The board vote.
10 a.m.
Robert was planning something at the sale meeting.
Charles refused to cancel.
“We finish this.”
Evelyn surprised everyone.
“So do I.”
The night before the vote, she visited each member of staff.
Not to give orders.
To apologize.
Lucy cried.
Two employees refused to forgive her.
Evelyn accepted that.
She also contacted the seven fired workers and offered reinstatement, compensation, and independent review.
“You can't buy forgiveness,” Annie told her.
“I know.”
“Good.”
“Do you ever stop correcting people?”
“No.”
Evelyn smiled.
Their relationship had changed.
Not friendship exactly.
Something earned more slowly.
Trust.
At midnight, Annie couldn't sleep.
She went downstairs.
The foyer was dark.
The replacement table stood empty where Catherine's vase had once been.
Annie noticed movement in the reflection of the floor.
A man.
She turned.
Daniel Ross stood behind her.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Alive.
“Don't scream.”
Annie helped him into the library.
Charles, Evelyn, Adrian, and Margaret gathered.
Daniel explained.
He had spent years pretending loyalty to Robert while collecting evidence.
He planted some messages deliberately.
But Robert discovered the deception.
“Who is inside the house?” Annie asked.
Daniel looked at Margaret.
Then Charles.
“Neither.”
“Who?”
“Someone Robert paid years ago.”
Daniel reached into his jacket.
He produced a photograph.
Lucy.
Annie stared.
“No.”
“Her real name isn't Lucy Bennett.”
Daniel placed another photograph beside it.
A young woman standing with Frank Ross.
“My sister,” he said.
Everyone froze.
Lucy was Daniel's half sister.
Frank Ross had raised her.
Robert had recruited her after Frank died.
“Where is she?”
Daniel looked toward the staff wing.
An alarm suddenly sounded.
Fire.
Smoke began pouring from the west corridor.
They ran.
Catherine's bedroom was burning.
Evelyn screamed.
“Mother's things!”
Annie grabbed her.
“No!”
Sprinklers activated.
Security rushed upstairs.
Then Charles realized something.
“The records.”
They ran toward the study.
The evidence collected for the board meeting was gone.
So was Lucy.
On Charles's desk sat a note.
COME TO THE WEST BALCONY ALONE, EVELYN.
Evelyn read it.
Then the lights died.
From upstairs came Lucy's voice.
May you like
“Evelyn?”
A gunshot cracked through Whitmore House.
