Chapter 8 - ROSA’S REAL NAME
Rosa raised both hands.
“I did not hurt Olivia.”
Ethan’s expression was cold.
“Why would she warn me about you?”
“Because she knew my real name.”
Claire stared at her.
“What is it?”
“Rosalind Lang.”
Victor Lang’s daughter.
The revelation silenced the underground room.
Rosa had entered Eleanor’s service seven years earlier using forged identification.
She had cleaned the estate.
Prepared meals.
Listened from hallways.
And waited.
“My father forced me to help him when I was young,” she said.
“I carried messages between him and Eleanor.”
“I delivered medication to Saint Aurelia.”
“You knew Richard was alive,” Ethan said.
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
“That word is becoming very popular.”
Rosa accepted the anger.
“Olivia discovered who I was.”
“She believed I remained loyal to Victor.”
“Were you?”
“At first.”
Rosa opened the lining of her uniform.
A small flash drive was sewn inside.
“For three years, I copied every conversation between your mother and my father.”
“Why not go to police?”
“My father had custody of my son.”
Claire’s anger softened slightly.
“Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
“Victor moved him whenever I disobeyed.”
Rosa handed Ethan the drive.
“The recordings may tell us where Olivia was taken.”
Back at the estate, technicians opened the files.
One conversation had occurred the day before the gala.
Eleanor’s voice came first.
Claire Mason has returned.
Victor answered.
Then move Richard tonight.
What about Olivia?
She called Ethan’s office again.
Victor paused.
Use Rosa.
Make it look like she betrayed us.
Rosa covered her face.
“They wanted Olivia to distrust me.”
Another recording revealed the medical transport company handling Richard’s relocation.
Northstar Patient Services.
The company had three ambulances.
Police tracked two.
The third had disappeared after leaving Saint Aurelia.
Traffic cameras located it heading west.
A toll image showed a woman restrained inside.
Olivia.
The ambulance was registered to a company owned by Charles Denning.
The board member who demanded Ethan’s suspension.
Police raided Denning’s home.
He was gone.
His wife claimed he had flown to Europe.
Flight records showed otherwise.
His private plane remained at a regional airport.
Inside the hangar, investigators found medical oxygen tanks and Richard’s wheelchair.
A second aircraft had left hours earlier under a false registration.
Its destination was an island off the Maine coast.
The Whitmore family owned a private lodge there.
Ethan remembered visiting once as a child.
His mother told him never to mention it.
Federal agents prepared a rescue operation.
Then Eleanor’s attorney filed an emergency court order.
The island was private property.
No search could proceed without a warrant.
The judge reviewing the request was Arthur Bell.
Another name from Richard’s board ledger.
Ethan looked at Claire.
“The board does not control the company.”
“It controls the courts around it.”
Claire shook her head.
“Not every court.”
She removed an old contact card from her wallet.
“What is that?” Ethan asked.
“The federal investigator who believed me ten years ago.”
May you like
“You said nobody believed you.”
“I said you did not.”
