Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN WHO NEVER LEFT THE FAMILY
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
Rosalie watched me with exhausted eyes.
"I know how it sounds," she whispered.
"Tell me what happened."
She swallowed, wincing at the pain.
"Your mother discovered what the company was doing. She tried to stop it, but she had signed some of the original contracts. If the records became public, she could have been prosecuted."
"She died six years ago."
"I know."
"Then how could she have ordered the attack?"
Rosalie's eyes moved toward the window.
"Because she left instructions."
I sat down.
"What instructions?"
"Mother found a letter in the old trust files. It was written by your mother shortly before her death. It said that if anyone ever tried to expose the network, the documents had to be recovered and destroyed."
"Catherine told you this?"
"No. Catherine told me your mother had been helping her. She said they were protecting the family."
Rosalie took a shallow breath.
"But the letter didn't authorize an attack. Catherine said someone else interpreted it that way."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
I rubbed my face.
"Rosalie, I need you to tell me everything."
She closed her eyes.
"I thought Catherine was my biological mother until I found the birth certificate. She said the papers were forged. Then I found your father's letter. It confirmed the truth."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was afraid."
"Of me?"
"Of what it would do to you."
Her voice cracked.
"I loved you, Alexander. I didn't want you to look at me and see a lie."
I reached for her hand.
"Nothing about what happened is your fault."
She shook her head.
"I knew we might be related. I couldn't be sure until I found the original records. I was going to tell you as soon as I had proof."
I felt a painful knot tighten in my chest.
"Did you believe we were siblings?"
"At first, yes."
"Then why did you say you loved me?"
"Because I married you before I knew. Because I didn't know the truth. Because I was terrified that everything we had was about to disappear."
Tears slid down her cheeks.
"I tried to find out whether the documents were authentic. The night I was attacked, I finally found the original adoption file."
"Where is it?"
"With Catherine."
I stared at her.
"She has the original file?"
"She took it before she left the house."
I stood and walked to the window.
My marriage might have been built on a biological relationship neither of us understood. The possibility was unbearable.
But I couldn't allow the people responsible for Rosalie's injuries to use that uncertainty to control her.
"We'll find the records," I said.
She caught my hand.
"There's something else."
"What?"
"The person who attacked me knew about the hidden room. They knew where I kept the files. They knew you were coming home."
I turned back.
"Who knew?"
"Only three people. Me, Hannah, and the person who helped me make the copies."
"Who was that?"
Rosalie hesitated.
"Your father's former assistant. Evelyn Brooks."
I took out the letter.
"She may know what happened the night your father died."
Rosalie looked at the name.
Then she began to cry.
"What is it?"
"She's dead."
"How do you know?"
"Because I spoke to her two days before the attack. She told me she was going to meet someone who had proof about your mother."
"Who?"
"She wouldn't say."
"Did she tell you where she was going?"
Rosalie nodded weakly.
"An old church outside Savannah. She said the person she was meeting would be carrying a silver watch."
I called Ward.
He agreed to help me locate Evelyn's last known address, but he warned me that the case had become too dangerous for him to handle openly. After the shooting at the archive, he no longer trusted his own department.
We arranged to travel to Savannah before dawn.
Hannah insisted on coming with us.
"I owe Rosalie that much," she said.
I wanted to refuse.
Then I remembered her shaking hands outside the ICU, and the fact that she had finally chosen to tell the truth.
I let her come.
The church stood at the end of a narrow road lined with moss-covered oak trees. Its windows were dark, and the doors were chained shut.
Behind the building was a small cemetery.
We searched the grounds until Hannah found a fresh patch of earth near the rear wall.
A silver watch lay on top of the dirt.
I picked it up.
The engraving on the back read:
To Evelyn, with gratitude. Thomas Sinclair.
Someone had buried her.
I called local authorities and waited for a forensic team, but before they arrived, my phone rang.
The number was blocked.
I answered.
A woman's voice whispered, "Captain Sinclair, if you want to know who killed your father, stop looking at the people who hated him."
"Who is this?"
"Look at the people who loved him."
The call ended.
Hannah stared at me.
"Who was that?"
I looked down at the watch.
My father's name was engraved on it.
And suddenly I remembered something I hadn't thought about in years.
The night my father died, my mother had been wearing a matching watch.
I had assumed it was a gift from him.
But the engraving on the back of hers had been different.
For the child we couldn't save.
I looked at Hannah.
"Get in the car."
"Why?"
"Because I need to find my mother's old records."
Before we could leave, a black SUV appeared at the end of the road.
Its headlights illuminated the cemetery.
The driver's door opened.
A woman stepped out.
She was older, with silver hair and a long dark coat.
I recognized her face from the family photographs.
My mother.
But Eleanor Sinclair had been buried six years earlier.
The woman raised her hands.
"Alexander," she said.
May you like
Then she looked at Hannah.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart. I never wanted you to find out this way."
