Chapter 13 - AMELIA’S LETTER
Ethan wanted to pursue Celeste immediately.
Sophie refused to release his hand.
He could not leave her again.
Detective Ortiz ordered Nora and two officers to take Sophie through the secured tunnel.
Sophie reached into her sweater before leaving.
She removed a folded piece of paper.
“Celeste took the envelope.”
“She didn’t take the real letter.”
Nora smiled through tears.
Amelia had taught Sophie never to abandon something important simply because an adult demanded it.
When Celeste searched the waterproof bag, Sophie switched the original letter with blank paper from the treatment room.
The real letter remained beneath her sweater.
Ethan opened it with Sophie’s permission.
My beautiful Sophie,
You may be too young to understand this when you first read it.
Nothing that happened to me was your fault.
Nothing your father does while grieving will mean he loves you less.
Some people will tell you that our family name is a treasure.
It is not.
A name only has value when the person carrying it chooses honesty.
Your grandfather Thomas helped create Blackstone.
Later, he discovered what it had become.
He hid money to repay the families harmed by it.
That money does not belong to the Whitmores.
It does not belong to Celeste.
It belongs to the people whose homes, inheritances, and children were taken.
The second code is the number of kisses I gave you every night.
Always remember that your father knows the first.
Love is not silence.
Love is telling the truth before silence becomes dangerous.
Mom.
Sophie raised three fingers.
“Mom kissed me three times.”
“Forehead, nose, and cheek.”
The second code was three.
The first code was hidden behind the photograph.
Ethan examined Amelia’s handwritten warning again.
Seven lines.
The first letter of each line spelled E-I-D-D-T-E.
It meant nothing.
Sophie turned the picture sideways.
“Mom said read from the moon.”
The blue moon in the photograph’s background appeared beside the final line.
Reading the first letters upward produced E-T-D-D-I-E.
Still nothing.
Nora noticed tiny numbers beside selected words.
Four.
Eleven.
Twenty-seven.
Using those positions revealed six digits.
6-1-9-8-2-4.
Combined with Sophie’s three, the full access code became 6198243.
Detective Ortiz contacted the bank holding Thomas’s restitution fund.
The account could not be accessed remotely.
It required the original amendment, the full code, and biometric confirmation from a direct Whitmore descendant.
Celeste had planned to use Sophie.
Now she had only Amelia’s empty envelope.
She was racing toward a fund she could not open.
Richard looked toward the seaplane dock.
“She will realize Sophie has the real letter.”
“What will she do?” Ethan asked.
“She will come back.”
A gunshot echoed through the tunnel.
One of the officers near the lakeside entrance called for help.
Graham Pike had arrived.
He was not escaping with Celeste.
He was trying to reach Sophie.
Richard stepped in front of Ethan.
“Pike will not leave witnesses.”
“Then why are you protecting us?”
Richard looked toward the approaching shadows.
“Because Amelia was my friend before I betrayed her.”
“That does not make you brave.”
“No.”
May you like
Richard picked up the metal bar an officer had dropped.
“But perhaps it can make me useful.”
