Chapter 6 - THE UNCLE WHO CLAIMED HE WAS BLEEDING
Anthony laughed when Damian placed the cuff link in front of him.
He was sitting in a private drawing room with his wounded arm bandaged.
“You think I tied up Victoria while bleeding on your dining-room floor?”
“I think you’ve lied to me before.”
Anthony’s smile disappeared.
“Careful.”
Damian leaned against the desk.
“No. You be careful.”
Clara stood near the door.
Anthony noticed.
“You’re letting staff attend family conversations now?”
Damian answered without looking at her.
“Clara stays.”
Something warm and dangerous moved through her chest.
Anthony studied her.
“You look like Joanne.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
Damian’s voice went quiet.
“Say one more thing about her mother.”
Anthony looked at his nephew.
For the first time, Clara saw fear.
Small.
But real.
Anthony claimed someone must have stolen the cuff link.
He said Margaret Kensington framed Joanne because Joanne had discovered Margaret stealing jewelry.
He denied knowing anything about forged accounts.
Then Clara asked the question nobody else did.
“Why did my mother run instead of defending herself?”
Anthony smiled.
“Because guilty people run.”
“No.”
Clara stepped closer.
“Afraid people run.”
His eyes changed.
She continued.
“My mother changed our surname for six years. She moved four times. She taught me never to give strangers our address.”
Anthony’s expression remained calm.
“But she kept the pie recipe.”
Clara saw it then.
A twitch.
Tiny.
At the mention of the pie.
“Why does that bother you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does.”
Damian looked between them.
Clara remembered Joanne’s habits.
Taste the filling twice.
Salt after sweetness.
Always use rye.
And one strange rule:
Never use the bottle from the front cabinet.
She had always insisted the good rye should come from the back.
Clara turned to Gerard.
“The rye I used tonight. Where did it come from?”
“Back pantry.”
“What’s in the front cabinet?”
Gerard frowned.
“An old Costello reserve bottle. Nobody uses it.”
Damian went still.
“My father’s.”
They returned to the kitchen.
The bottle sat behind glass.
Unopened for years.
Clara noticed scratches beneath the base.
They lifted it.
Under the shelf was a small recessed latch.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside were three microfilm rolls and a key.
Gerard whispered, “Joanne.”
She had hidden something in the kitchen.
Exactly where she knew nobody powerful would look.
Beside the microfilm was a tiny handwritten strip of paper.
Clara recognized her mother’s handwriting immediately.
If Damian finds this, tell him Anthony knows what happened to his mother.
Damian stopped breathing.
His mother, Elena, had died twelve years earlier after supposedly falling from a balcony at the family’s country house.
The death had always been ruled an accident.
Damian turned toward Anthony.
But the chair was empty.
May you like
His uncle had disappeared.
And the guard outside the room was lying unconscious on the floor.
