Chapter 13 - Victoria’s Visit Changes Everything
Gabriel called the penthouse immediately.
Victoria denied it.
Then Maya found proof.
A visitor log from the Vermont facility showed “Victoria Lane” entering twelve months earlier.
Same birth date.
Same driver’s-license number.
Victoria had lied again.
Federal agents brought her to a conference room in Manhattan that evening.
Gabriel placed the visitor record in front of her.
“Why did you see Lily?”
Victoria stared at the paper.
Then she began to cry.
“My father made me.”
Gabriel’s patience vanished.
“Stop blaming him for every choice you made.”
“I’m not.”
She looked up.
“I went because he told me Lily was unstable and might contact you.”
“Why would that matter?”
“Because if Lily remembered Richard Sterling was her father, she could challenge the estate.”
Sarah watched Victoria carefully.
“That’s what Daniel told you?”
“Yes.”
“But that wasn’t the real reason.”
Victoria looked at her.
Sarah continued.
“Lily witnessed Eleanor’s death.”
Victoria’s face changed.
She had not known that.
Gabriel saw it too.
“What happened when you visited?”
Victoria swallowed.
“She asked about Eleanor.”
“And?”
“I panicked.”
“Why?”
“Because my father had told me never to discuss her.”
Victoria folded her hands tightly.
“Lily kept saying she remembered rain, a road, and a woman wearing gloves.”
Sarah’s stomach tightened.
“Did she think that woman was you?”
Victoria nodded.
Gabriel stood abruptly.
“You were there?”
“No.”
“I was sixteen when Eleanor died.”
Gabriel stopped.
She was right.
Victoria could not have been the woman in Ethan’s car.
So why had Lily connected her to the gloves?
Victoria wiped her face.
“When I visited, Lily touched my hand.”
Sarah looked at her.
“I was wearing black leather gloves.”
The same sensory memory.
Not identity.
Lily had confused the present with the past.
Then Victoria said something important.
“She kept saying one word.”
“What word?”
“Rose.”
Gabriel frowned.
Sarah did too.
Victoria continued.
“Rose. Rose. Rose.”
Gabriel’s face slowly changed.
“My mother’s sister.”
Sarah looked at him.
“Rose Sterling?”
“Rose Bennett now.”
Gabriel had not seen his aunt in years.
Rose moved to Florida shortly after Eleanor’s death.
Family conflict, he had been told.
Another convenient story.
Maya pulled travel records.
Rose had flown from New York to Miami the morning after Eleanor died.
She had never returned permanently.
Gabriel called her.
No answer.
Then Maya found something worse.
Rose Bennett had checked into a Manhattan hotel two nights earlier.
She was in New York now.
Sarah whispered, “Why would she come back now?”
Maya looked at the incoming federal alert.
“Because Ethan contacted her.”
A burner phone recovered from the red case contained three recent messages.
COME HOME.
THE GIRL REMEMBERED.
WE END THIS WHERE IT STARTED.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“The girl means Lily.”
Sarah’s mouth went dry.
“And ‘where it started’?”
May you like
Gabriel looked toward the dark Manhattan skyline.
“My mother’s house in Connecticut.”
