Chapter 10 - THE HOUSE I GREW UP IN
The photograph had been taken inside Camille’s study.
I recognized the desk immediately.
Dark walnut.
Brass handles.
A scratch across the lower-left drawer from the time I rammed a toy truck into it when I was six.
Marcus enlarged the image.
“Current timestamp.”
“Yes.”
“Someone inside the house sent this.”
“Lydia?”
“No.”
“She hasn’t been there.”
Celeste stared at the photograph.
“Mom’s staff?”
“Possibly.”
Then another message arrived.
COME TONIGHT.
ALONE.
Evelyn shook her head before I finished reading.
“No.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
“And I’m not debating.”
Marcus looked at me.
“I’ll go.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because they asked for me.”
“That is exactly why I should go.”
Celeste took my phone.
“Neither of you.”
She looked at the message.
“That house was mine too.”
Evelyn sighed.
“Apparently everyone in this family wants to become evidence.”
In the end, we compromised.
Celeste and I went.
Marcus stayed nearby.
Evelyn knew.
Noelle remained with Rebecca’s recommended caregiver and two members of my security team.
At nine-thirty, Celeste and I parked across from the house where we had grown up.
The mansion seemed smaller than I remembered.
Maybe fear had made it enormous when we were children.
The side door opened.
A woman stepped outside.
I recognized her.
Margaret Doyle.
Camille’s personal secretary.
She had worked for my mother for fifteen years.
“Come quickly.”
We followed her through the kitchen.
“Where is Camille?”
“Charity dinner.”
“Raymond?”
“With her.”
Margaret led us upstairs.
My childhood photographs still lined the hallway.
One showed me at ten.
Another showed Celeste at six.
Every image had been selected by Camille.
No scraped knees.
No messy hair.
No tears.
Our childhood had been edited long before Noelle’s.
Margaret opened the study.
“Five minutes.”
“Why are you helping?”
She looked at me.
“Because I watched what happened at the wedding.”
“And?”
“She came home angry that Noelle made her look cruel.”
My jaw tightened.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“Not sorry?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“No.”
She opened the safe.
I stared.
“You know the code?”
“I manage her documents.”
Inside were folders.
Trust paperwork.
Property deeds.
Photographs.
Then I saw the envelope.
ADRIAN.
Elena’s handwriting.
My hand shook when I reached for it.
Margaret caught my wrist.
“Not yet.”
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
She removed another folder.
Its label stopped me.
NOELLE — GUARDIANSHIP AFTER ADRIAN.
Celeste inhaled.
“What does that mean?”
I opened it.
The first document was a draft petition.
The second was a proposed psychological evaluation.
The third contained a list of potential witnesses.
Then came something much stranger.
A printed obituary.
Mine.
DRAFT — NOT FOR RELEASE.
I stared at it.
My name.
My photograph.
A biography.
My daughter mentioned near the end.
“Why does she have a draft obituary for me?”
Margaret looked terrified.
“I don’t know.”
Marcus would later explain that wealthy families sometimes prepared emergency materials.
But Camille had no reason to prepare mine secretly.
Then Celeste found another page.
“Adrian.”
She handed it to me.
A proposed guardianship arrangement activated not only by death.
It also included incapacity.
Severe emotional instability.
Extended foreign absence.
Or judicial determination of parental unfitness.
Camille had planned every possible door through which she could take my daughter.
Then I opened Elena’s letter.
My hands stopped shaking.
Not because I was calm.
Because I had become numb.
Adrian,
If Camille gives you this, then maybe I was wrong about her.
I kept reading.
If she doesn’t, then you need to understand why I gave it to her instead of putting it at home.
Your mother has been asking questions about the trust.
About Noelle.
About your travel.
About whether I think you are emotionally suited to raise a child alone if something happens to me.
I stared at the page.
Elena had written this before she died.
I continued.
I told her the question frightened me.
She laughed.
Yesterday I overheard her telling Raymond that if you ever became inconvenient, they would need “a cleaner structure around Noelle.”
I don’t know what that means.
But I do not trust it.
My breathing stopped.
At the bottom, Elena had written one final paragraph.
There is also something wrong with the Mercer Trust.
I found transfers.
I copied everything.
If I’m overreacting, forgive me.
If I’m not, protect our daughter.
Love you always.
E.
I looked inside the envelope.
Empty.
“Where are the copies?”
Margaret shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then headlights swept across the study window.
May you like
Margaret went white.
“They’re home.”
