Chapter 7 - THE DOOR TO VALE HOUSE
Vale House stood on twenty-three acres north of the city.
Maya had seen photographs online.
None prepared her for the feeling of standing outside it.
The stone mansion rose beyond iron gates and enormous maple trees.
She had been here before.
She knew that before anyone told her.
Her body remembered.
Maya walked through the entrance with Grant beside her.
Lily held both their hands.
At the main staircase, Maya stopped.
A memory struck so sharply she almost lost her balance.
She saw herself at five years old.
Red socks.
A wooden horse.
Her mother chasing her around the banister.
Maya gripped the railing.
“I fell here.”
Grant stared.
“You did.”
“I cut my chin.”
He touched his own chin unconsciously.
“Seven stitches.”
Maya looked at him.
“You carried me to the car.”
Grant’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The housekeeper who had worked for the family for forty years began crying when she saw Maya.
She didn’t approach.
She simply whispered, “Welcome home.”
Maya wasn’t ready for that word.
Home.
It felt too large.
Too loaded.
Grant led her upstairs to a room that had remained locked for decades.
Her childhood bedroom.
The wallpaper had faded.
Stuffed animals sat behind glass to protect them from dust.
On a shelf was a music box shaped like a white swan.
Maya opened it.
A melody filled the room.
She knew every note.
Lily looked at her mother.
“Why are you crying?”
Maya crouched.
“Because I forgot something beautiful.”
Grant quietly left them alone.
Later, Julian met Maya in Grant’s study.
He placed a folder on the desk.
“Your mother used an attorney in Baltimore under the name Catherine Brooks.”
“The attorney died nine years ago.”
“But his old firm kept archived storage records.”
Julian opened the folder.
One document listed a safe-deposit box.
Another listed annual payments made through a shell company.
Maya frowned.
“Who paid them?”
“That’s the problem.”
Julian pointed to the signature.
A.V. Holdings.
Maya looked at Grant.
“What is A.V.?”
Grant’s face hardened.
“My younger brother.”
“Adrian Vale.”
Maya had seen him on television.
Adrian was vice chairman of Vale Global.
He had effectively run the company during Grant’s recent health problems.
Grant sat down.
“Catherine never trusted Adrian.”
“Why?”
“She believed he was moving money through companies I didn’t know about.”
Julian added, “Three weeks before Catherine disappeared, she told me she had proof of something criminal inside Vale Global.”
Maya stared at the documents.
“You think she ran because of him?”
Grant answered carefully.
“I think we need to open that safe-deposit box.”
Maya looked again at the payment records.
Then she saw the date of the first transfer.
One day before the crash.
A cold realization moved through her.
“My mother didn’t disappear after the accident.”
Julian nodded.
“She planned to disappear before it.”
Maya looked toward the childhood bedroom upstairs.
All those years, she had believed her mother had stolen her from a loving father.
Now another possibility emerged.
May you like
Catherine may have been trying to save her.
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