Chapter 10
Two weeks after the gala, Catherine stood alone inside Arthur Vance’s private study at the historic Vance estate in Keuka Lake.
The house had been closed for forty years, sealed by court order until the trust litigation was officially dismissed. Sunlight streamed through tall French windows, illuminating dust motes dancing over mahogany bookshelves, leather armchairs, and faded Persian rugs.
Julian had offered to accompany her, but Catherine had asked for an hour alone. She needed to breathe the air her biological father had breathed.
On the center desk lay a heavy, iron-bound wooden strongbox that had belonged to Daniel Turner—recovered from the parsonage workshop by the state police and returned to Catherine.
Inside were Daniel’s private conservation journals from 1980 to 1985.
Catherine sat in Arthur’s high-backed leather chair, running her fingers over the cracked leather spine of the 1984 volume. She turned the pages slowly, reading her father’s neat, disciplined cursive.
Every entry chronicled his work: *“Cleaned varnish on 18th-century Hudson landscape... Repaired tears on church mural in Albany...”*
Then she turned to the entry for December 18, 1984.
The day she was supposedly born in Vermont.
Catherine read the lines, her heart beating a slow, heavy rhythm:
*“The child was delivered at 4:15 a.m. Healthy, strong lungs. Clara held her daughter for three hours before the fever took her completely. Evelyn and I have made our sacred vow. Clara will rest on the hill overlooking the water. We will call the child Catherine.”*
Tears blurred Catherine’s vision. The truth was laid bare in her father’s own hand. She closed the journal, feeling a profound sense of closure wash over her soul.
She was about to stand up when she noticed something odd about the back cover of the journal.
The leather binding had a thick, stiff inner lining. As a restorer, Catherine knew that stiffness meant an envelope or loose leaf had been pasted into the board.
Carefully, Catherine used a small pocket knife to slice along the seam of the inner lining.
A sealed, folded letter fell onto the mahogany desk.
On the outside of the envelope, written in Daniel Turner’s distinct handwriting, were the words:
*“To be opened by Catherine Turner only if she discovers the truth of Keuka Lake.”*
Catherine’s breath caught. With trembling fingers, she broke the wax seal and unfolded the single sheet of yellowed paper inside.
The letter was dated August 12, 1999—fifteen years after Clara had supposedly died.
*“My dearest Cathy,*
*If you are reading this, Victoria’s secret has fallen, and you know who your father was. But there is one final truth I could never bring myself to speak aloud while I was alive, because doing so would have put your life in mortal danger.*
*Clara did not die on that hill in Vermont.*
*The pneumonia was severe, but she survived the winter. When Victoria’s investigators got too close in the spring of 1985, Clara realized that as long as she was near you, you would never be safe. Victoria would track the mother to find the child.*
*Clara made the ultimate sacrifice. She staged her own death. We buried an empty pine box on the Vermont hillside.*
*Clara took a new identity and left the country under the protection of an underground network of artists in Europe. She made me swear never to tell Arthur, and never to tell you, until Victoria was completely powerless to harm you.*
*Before she boarded the ship in Montreal, she gave me a message for you, Cathy, to be delivered when the time was right:*
*‘Tell my daughter that the empty space on the steps was never meant for Arthur alone. It was meant for her. And tell her to look for the signature on the back of the cottage door in Keuka Lake.’*
*She is out there, Cathy. She has been waiting for forty years.*
*With all my love,*
*Your father, Daniel.”*
Catherine’s vision swam. The room spun.
*Clara was alive.*
Catherine dropped the letter, her heart pounding like a war drum. She turned her head toward the French windows, looking out across the vast lawn toward the edge of Keuka Lake.
There, half-hidden among the golden maple trees, stood the modest white cottage with the wooden dock stretching into the water.
The exact cottage from the painting.
Catherine stood up, walking toward the window, her hand pressing against the cold glass.
May you like
Across the water, on the wooden porch of the distant cottage, a figure in a light-colored coat was standing beside the steps, looking across the lake toward the main house.
Waiting.
