Chapter 31 - THE UNOPENED LETTER
Six months later, spring had returned to the Montgomery estate in Connecticut.
The gardens were blooming with red roses, and baby Evelyn was taking her very first trembling steps across the green lawn.
Clara sat on the patio bench, watching her daughter laugh while playing with Elena and Detective Reese.
A postman walked up the long driveway, delivering a thick parchment envelope stamped with red wax.
The letter had no return address, only Clara's name written in elegant, gold calligraphy.
Clara broke the red wax seal, pulling out a folded piece of heavy linen paper.
Inside was a handwritten message that made her heart stop in her chest:
"My dearest Clara, you played the game brilliantly in New York and Aspen."
"But you forgot one tiny detail... your mother didn't die in that hospital thirty years ago."
"She is sitting right beside me in Paris, waiting for you to bring our granddaughter home."
Clara’s hand shook violently as a second photo slid out from inside the envelope.
It was a recent color photograph of an older blonde woman sitting in a Parisian café, holding a morning newspaper showing yesterday's date.
Beside the woman sat Lord Julian Vance, smiling directly into the camera lens with two champagne glasses raised in a toast.
May you like
Clara stood up from the bench, her eyes wide with terror as she looked toward the quiet street beyond the estate gates.
A sleek black sedan with darkened windows sat parked under the shade of the oak trees, its engine idling silently.
