Chapter 3 - The Blue Room Key.
The Sterling estate sat twenty minutes from the hotel, hidden behind iron gates and rows of old maple trees.
Grant drove himself because he did not want a driver hearing what might happen next.
Mara sat beside Noah in the back seat.
Noah had stopped crying, but he still held the old photograph against his chest.
Nobody spoke until the mansion appeared through the rain.
Mara looked at it through the window.
"I used to think this place was beautiful."
Grant kept his eyes on the road.
"And now?"
"Now it looks like a place built to keep secrets inside."
Grant had no answer.
The housekeeper opened the front door before they reached it.
Her eyes widened when she saw Mara.
"Miss Reed."
Mara stopped.
"You remember me, Mrs. Ellis?"
The older woman looked toward Grant and then back at Mara.
"Some people are difficult to forget."
Grant felt another piece of his certainty crack.
He held up the key from Evelyn's envelope.
"Where is my mother?"
Mrs. Ellis hesitated.
"She came home ten minutes ago."
"Where is she?"
"The west wing."
Grant moved toward the stairs.
Mrs. Ellis reached for his arm.
"Mr. Sterling, she told me that if you came with Miss Reed, I should take you to the blue room first."
Grant stopped.
The blue room had once been his grandfather's private library.
After his grandfather died, Evelyn had ordered it sealed during renovations.
Grant had not entered it in nearly fifteen years.
They crossed the west corridor and stopped at a blue-painted door with an old brass lock.
The key fit perfectly.
Inside, the room smelled of dust, cedar, and paper.
A single lamp had been left on.
Mara looked around at rows of archive boxes stacked along the walls.
Noah stayed close to her.
At the center of the room stood a narrow table.
On it rested three boxes labeled with dates from five years earlier.
Grant opened the first.
Inside were copies of legal letters.
Every one of them had Mara's name.
Every one claimed she had failed to respond to custody notices.
Mara picked up the first document.
"I never received this."
She picked up another.
"Or this."
Grant opened the second box.
It contained envelopes addressed to him.
Dozens of them.
All had been opened.
None had been delivered.
His name was written across each envelope in Mara's handwriting.
His hands began to shake.
"You wrote to me."
Mara laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
"Every week for nine months."
Grant opened the first letter.
Grant, I am not asking you to forgive me for leaving the house that night.
I am asking you to believe that I never left Noah.
He opened another.
Grant, Charles says you refuse to speak with me.
Please tell Noah I love him.
Another.
I waited outside the school today for two hours, but security said I was not allowed near the building.
Another.
If you truly want me gone, tell me yourself.
Grant could not keep reading.
He sat down heavily in the old leather chair.
Mara stood across from him with tears in her eyes, but her voice stayed steady.
"You never answered."
"I never saw them."
"I know that now."
Grant looked up.
"Why didn't you come to me directly?"
Mara's jaw tightened.
"I tried."
She reached into the box and pulled out a visitor log from the hotel where Grant had lived during the custody dispute.
Her name appeared fourteen times.
Every entry had the same note beside it.
Denied by family instruction.
Grant stared at the handwriting.
He recognized it.
Charles Vane.
Noah wandered toward the third box.
"Dad, this one has my name."
Grant stood quickly.
"Don't open anything yet."
Noah stepped back.
Mara lifted the lid.
Inside were children's drawings, birthday cards, photographs, and small unopened packages.
Noah's face changed when he saw them.
"Those are mine."
He grabbed a drawing of a red house under a huge yellow sun.
"I made this when I was four."
Mara touched the paper carefully.
"I never got it."
Noah looked confused.
"Grandma said you did."
Grant closed his eyes.
Before anyone could speak, footsteps sounded in the corridor.
Evelyn appeared in the doorway.
She was still wearing the dark blue gown from the gala.
Her face looked older than it had an hour earlier.
Noah stared at her.
"Grandma, why were my pictures in here?"
Evelyn's eyes filled with something Grant could not immediately name.
Shame.
"Because I made a terrible mistake."
Grant stepped toward her.
"A mistake?"
Evelyn looked at Mara.
"I thought I was protecting this family."
Mara's voice became very quiet.
"From me?"
Evelyn nodded.
"At first."
Grant heard the last two words.
"At first?"
Evelyn looked toward the open boxes.
"Later I learned Charles was protecting something else."
Grant's pulse quickened.
"What?"
Evelyn walked to the table and lifted the false bottom from the third box.
Beneath it lay a black accounting ledger and a flash drive.
"Twenty-eight million dollars," she said.
Grant stared at her.
"What are you talking about?"
May you like
Evelyn met his eyes.
"Money disappeared from Noah's trust the same month Mara disappeared from your life."
