Chapter 3 - The Photograph in Blue.
Willa read the words twice before the stairwell door above her banged open.
Grant’s footsteps struck the concrete stairs.
She shoved the photograph back into the envelope and ran.
Daniel told her to take the next landing into the hotel laundry corridor.
“Dad, what does the picture mean?”
“Not here.”
“You sent it to me.”
“I sent it because I was afraid Eleanor had started moving against you.”
Willa nearly missed a step.
“Moving against me for what?”
Grant’s voice echoed from above.
“Willa, stop.”
She pushed through the laundry door and found herself in a narrow corridor lined with carts of folded white linens.
A startled housekeeper looked up.
Willa forced herself not to stop.
Daniel continued speaking.
“Go through the kitchen loading dock.”
“You are avoiding the question.”
“Yes.”
That honesty frightened her.
She emerged into the hotel kitchen, where cooks paused over silver trays as she passed in a torn evening gown with one bare foot.
A sous-chef recognized her and pointed silently toward the loading exit.
Behind her, Grant entered the kitchen.
He no longer looked polished.
“Do not help her,” he shouted.
The kitchen went still.
Willa reached the exit.
A black sedan was waiting outside with its rear door open.
Her father’s longtime driver, Owen Price, stood beside it.
He pulled Willa inside just as Grant burst through the loading door.
Grant struck the side of the car with his palm.
“Willa!”
Owen drove away.
For several blocks, Willa could not speak.
Daniel remained on the phone.
Finally she whispered, “Tell me.”
Her father exhaled.
“Twenty-two years ago, Eleanor came to me because she was terrified her husband would discover something.”
Willa looked again at the photograph.
“The baby?”
“Yes.”
“Grant?”
Daniel was silent too long.
Willa’s stomach turned.
“Dad.”
“The baby was Grant.”
She stared at the blurred lights passing beyond the window.
“I don’t understand.”
“Victor Sterling believed Grant was his son.”
Willa gripped the phone.
“He isn’t?”
“No.”
“Then whose son is he?”
Daniel’s answer came carefully.
“I do not know.”
Willa almost laughed from disbelief.
“You expect me to believe you helped Eleanor hide a child’s paternity for twenty-two years and never learned who the father was?”
“I learned enough to know the truth could destroy the Sterling family.”
“And you kept it from me while I dated him?”
“I kept it because Eleanor swore the secret was buried.”
Willa’s voice rose.
“You knew she could blackmail me.”
“No.”
“Then why send the photograph?”
Daniel went quiet again.
The sedan turned toward the Harrow family townhouse.
Owen’s eyes flicked toward Willa in the mirror.
Daniel finally said, “Because three days ago, someone broke into my private archive.”
Willa looked down at the envelope.
“And?”
“The only file they took was Grant’s.”
The sedan slowed at a red light.
A motorcycle pulled alongside them.
The rider lifted his visor.
Inside the sedan, Willa noticed another detail in the old photograph that she had missed in the stairwell.
A hospital bracelet circled the newborn's wrist.
The printed name had been scratched away with black ink.
Only the date remained.
It was Grant's birthday.
On the corner of the photograph, someone had written the initials J.C. in blue pen.
Willa showed it to Owen.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel.
He claimed he did not recognize the initials.
But his eyes told a different story.
Willa filed the reaction away.
For the first time that night, she realized her father's driver might know more about the Sterling family than she did.
It was Grant.
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He held up Willa’s missing high heel like a trophy.
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