Chapter 10 - BESS’S BETRAYAL
I felt stupid.
Not because Bess had lied.
Because I had trusted her.
That hurt differently.
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“From the first second.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Bess cried quietly.
“Because your father asked me to protect you.”
“He’s been dead eleven years.”
“I know.”
I stood.
“That is not protection.”
Garrett said nothing.
He let me speak.
Bess wiped her face.
“Victor told me if you stayed, he would hurt Percy.”
Percy, standing near the door, froze.
Bess looked at him.
“He’s my grandson.”
I had not known.
Percy looked equally shocked that she had said it aloud.
Victor had threatened him.
Bess agreed to keep quiet.
To report what I discovered.
To tell Victor if I found the hidden box.
My stomach turned.
“Did you?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“He called me after Celeste searched the archive.”
“I told him nothing.”
“Why?”
Bess looked at my father’s letter in my hand.
“Because I was tired of keeping promises to cruel men.”
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
Garrett asked.
“What did Victor want?”
“The tape.”
“Did he know where it was?”
“No.”
“He thought Thomas gave it to me.”
I looked at her.
“You had twenty years.”
She nodded.
“I was afraid.”
I understood fear.
I did not excuse it.
There is a difference.
Percy sat beside her.
He didn’t touch her at first.
Then slowly, he took her hand.
Garrett looked at Bess.
“Did Victor say where he would go if things collapsed?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
Everyone leaned forward.
“There’s an old Harwick warehouse near the Hudson.”
Garrett knew it.
“Dock Seven.”
Bess nodded.
“He kept records there years ago.”
Sheriff Nolan immediately called state police.
They searched the warehouse before dawn.
Victor was gone.
But someone had been there.
A cot.
Food.
Burned papers.
One laptop.
And a wall covered with photographs.
Garrett.
Celeste.
Me.
Percy.
Bess.
Addie.
Victor had been watching all of us.
On the desk was a printed article about my father.
Obituary.
A red circle around my name.
Laura Beckett, daughter.
Beside it was my job application to Harwick estate.
Someone had forwarded it to Victor before I was hired.
Garrett stared at the page.
“Who had access to applications?”
Bess answered.
“Celeste.”
We understood.
Celeste did not merely discover who I was after I arrived.
She hired me.
Why?
To find what my father had hidden.
May you like
I had not walked into that estate by accident.
Celeste had brought me there as bait.
