Chapter 7 - The Mother Clara Buried
Clara dropped the phone.
Adrian caught it before it hit the floor.
Victor was still speaking.
“Clara?”
Adrian answered.
“Where is Anna?”
Victor became silent.
“Blackwood.”
“Where?”
“Ask your father.”
The call ended.
Clara stood perfectly still.
“No.”
Adrian approached her.
“She died in hospice. I was there.”
“Did you identify the body?”
“I held her hand.”
“What happened afterward?”
“She was cremated.”
“Who arranged it?”
Clara opened her mouth.
Stopped.
A hospice administrator had handled most of the paperwork because Clara had been exhausted.
The funeral home had been prepaid.
By Anna.
Or supposedly by Anna.
Adrian made three calls.
Within two hours, they had the records.
The woman admitted under Anna Bennett’s identity had no DNA confirmation.
No fingerprints.
She had advanced neurological damage and rarely spoke.
Her face had been partially reconstructed after what records described as a domestic accident.
Clara sank into a chair.
“I spent four months beside a stranger.”
Evelyn sat near her.
“Maybe she wasn't a stranger.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maybe your mother chose someone you would care for.”
“That doesn't make this better.”
“No.”
Clara stood.
“I need air.”
She walked into the garden.
Adrian followed several minutes later.
She was sitting beneath an old oak.
“I don't want company.”
“I know.”
He sat anyway.
Clara looked at him.
“You're terrible at following instructions.”
“So I've been told.”
She laughed once.
Then cried.
Adrian didn't touch her.
Not immediately.
When her shoulders began shaking, he quietly offered his hand.
She took it.
“My whole life is somebody else's secret.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Your dead father is alive. Your dead wife is alive. My dead mother might be alive.”
Adrian looked toward the manor.
“We need less dramatic relatives.”
That earned another broken laugh.
Then Clara realized she was still holding his hand.
She released it.
Adrian looked at her.
Something had changed.
Neither named it.
They found Anna two days later.
Not through Richard.
Through Lily.
The little girl had been drawing at the kitchen table when she suddenly asked Clara, “Why does your mommy have Mommy's music?”
Clara frowned.
“What?”
“The song from the blue room.”
Lily hummed the melody.
Clara froze.
She remembered.
Anna had played that melody every Sunday morning.
On an old upright piano.
Always the same piece.
Clara had assumed it was classical.
It wasn't.
Evelyn identified it.
“Anna wrote it.”
Clara stared.
“How do you know?”
“She taught it to me.”
“When?”
“Before I disappeared.”
Evelyn explained that Anna had contacted her secretly six years earlier.
She had known Richard was alive.
She had known Victor was searching.
And she had built an emergency communication system around something nobody else understood.
Music.
Each variation of the melody represented numbers.
Locations.
Dates.
The recording inside the nursery wasn't sentimental.
It was a message.
They analyzed it.
The notes translated into coordinates.
Wisconsin.
A farmhouse near Lake Geneva.
Adrian wanted security.
Clara refused.
“If my mother is there and sees armed men, she'll run.”
“Or someone shoots us.”
“Positive as always.”
“Alive as always.”
Evelyn stayed with Lily.
Adrian and Clara drove north.
The farmhouse looked abandoned.
Clara knocked.
Nothing.
She knocked again.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then a woman spoke behind them.
“You always knock too loudly.”
Clara turned.
A woman stood beside the barn.
Gray hair.
Weathered face.
Thin coat.
Alive.
Clara couldn't move.
Anna Bennett looked older than the mother she remembered.
But she was unmistakable.
“Mom?”
Anna began crying.
Clara crossed the distance and slapped her.
Adrian looked away.
Then Clara threw her arms around her.
Anna held her.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara sobbed against her shoulder.
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I hated myself because I was relieved when you stopped suffering.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe—”
“I know.”
Clara pushed her away.
“No. You don't get to keep saying that.”
Anna nodded.
“You're right.”
Inside the farmhouse, the truth finally emerged.
Victor was Clara's biological father.
The DNA report naming Richard had been forged.
Richard had loved Anna obsessively.
When she chose Victor, Richard retaliated by pushing him out of their company.
Anna fled while pregnant.
Years later, she secretly retained ownership of the patents that became the foundation of Blackwood Industries.
Richard could never legally claim full control while Anna or Clara lived.
“So that's what this is about,” Clara said. “Money.”
Anna shook her head.
“Control.”
She looked at Adrian.
“Your father never cared about money as much as he cared about owning people.”
“Where is he?”
Anna looked toward the window.
“Coming.”
Adrian stood.
“What?”
Headlights appeared outside.
Three vehicles.
Anna whispered, “He found me.”
Adrian reached for his weapon.
Clara looked through the curtain.
Richard Blackwood stepped from the first car.
Victor Hale stepped from the second.
But the third vehicle was what terrified Adrian.
Marcus Reed climbed out.
No handcuffs.
No police.
Nothing.
“He escaped?” Clara whispered.
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
Marcus had been released.
Which meant someone powerful had arranged it.
Richard walked toward the farmhouse.
Victor remained near his vehicle.
The two men looked at each other.
Thirty years of hatred stood between them.
Anna opened a drawer and removed a folder.
“Clara.”
“What?”
“If anything happens, take this.”
“What is it?”
“The original ownership agreement.”
Adrian understood.
“With this, Clara controls the patents.”
“Not only the patents.”
Anna looked at him.
“Blackwood Industries.”
Adrian stared.
Anna continued.
“Your father never owned the company.”
Outside, Richard reached the porch.
Anna looked at Clara.
“Your mother did.”
A knock sounded.
Three slow strikes.
Then Richard’s voice.
“Anna.”
Clara's hand tightened around the folder.
Richard spoke again.
“You've hidden long enough.”
Adrian moved beside the door.
Then another voice came from outside.
Victor.
“Open it, Anna.”
She closed her eyes.
Two men had spent nearly three decades destroying lives because neither could accept that she had chosen her own path.
Anna looked at her daughter.
May you like
“Whatever happens next, don't become us.”
Then the first bullet came through the window.
