Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT ELEANOR SAVED A BOY
Roman finally told me everything.
He had been twelve when he woke to smoke outside his bedroom.
His father was away.
His mother was downstairs.
And somebody had locked Roman’s door from the outside.
My mother broke it open with a fireplace poker.
She dragged him through a servant staircase seconds before the upper hallway filled with flames.
But while they escaped, Eleanor saw a man leaving the house.
Someone trusted by Roman’s father.
Someone who had access to everything.
My mother recognized him.
That was why she ran.
“Who was he?”
Roman looked at me.
“Sebastian Vale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Vincent, standing near the window, looked like it meant everything to him.
“Vale handled my father’s finances,” Roman said. “He died ten years ago.”
I exhaled.
“So the man threatening me isn’t him.”
“No.”
“Then what are we afraid of?”
Roman placed another photograph on the table.
Sebastian Vale had a son.
Adrian.
Forty-five.
Financial adviser.
Business consultant.
And until three days before I arrived…
Ravenwood’s kitchen accounts were supervised by his company.
I stared at Roman.
“Your kitchen manager quit three days before you found me.”
“Yes.”
“You think Adrian forced her out?”
“I’m beginning to.”
I suddenly remembered something.
The mysterious man at dinner.
“I saw the stranger’s hand.”
Roman frowned.
“What about it?”
“He had a ring. Green stone. Gold band.”
Vincent immediately reached for his phone.
Roman went still.
“The Vale family seal.”
There it was.
The connection.
My mother’s note.
The green wax.
The fire.
The threats.
But we still needed proof.
Then Walter appeared in the doorway holding my mother’s recipe box.
“You might already have it.”
I frowned.
“What?”
Walter turned one card toward the light.
“There’s writing underneath the writing.”
My mother had stacked two pieces of paper when she wrote.
Pressure marks had transferred onto the recipe card below.
Roman found a pencil and lightly shaded the surface.
Letters slowly appeared.
A sentence.
RAVENWOOD ISN’T WHERE I HID THE PROOF.
My heart sank.
Then a second sentence emerged.
MAGGIE ALREADY HAS IT.
Everyone looked at me.
“I don’t have anything.”
Walter’s gaze drifted toward my red coat.
And suddenly, I remembered something my mother had made me promise years ago.
May you like
No matter how poor you get, Maggie…
Never sell that coat.
