Chapter 3 - Thomas Knows the Missing Sister
Thomas Reed tried to recover too quickly.
“Sorry, sir.”
Adrian folded Claire’s note.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You dropped a radio because my missing wife mentioned a sister she supposedly never had.”
Thomas looked toward Emily.
Adrian noticed.
“She stays.”
Thomas exhaled.
“I was employed by your father before I worked for you.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“My father has been dead eight years.”
“Yes.”
“What does that have to do with Claire?”
Thomas closed the music-room doors.
“Your father made me promise never to discuss it.”
Adrian laughed without humor.
“Then consider the promise expired.”
Thomas told them that Claire did have a sister.
An older half sister named Lydia Hart.
Their mother had Lydia before marrying Claire’s father.
Lydia was raised by relatives in Maine.
Claire rarely spoke about her because the two women had been estranged for years.
Adrian stared.
“I knew Claire for seven years.”
Thomas said nothing.
“She never mentioned Lydia once.”
“She had a reason.”
“What reason?”
“Lydia was convicted of fraud.”
Emily watched Adrian absorb it.
Thomas explained Lydia had worked as a bookkeeper for a charitable foundation.
Money disappeared.
She was charged.
Claire believed her guilty.
At least publicly.
“What do you mean publicly?” Adrian asked.
Thomas hesitated.
“Three months before Claire vanished, she contacted Lydia.”
“How do you know?”
“Your father had the house phones monitored.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“He did what?”
Thomas looked ashamed.
“Mr. Vale believed someone was stealing from Vale Holdings.”
“My father recorded my wife?”
“He recorded everyone.”
Adrian turned away.
Emily saw his hands close into fists.
His father, Charles Vale, had built the family fortune through real estate, logistics, and private investments.
Adrian had spent years cleaning up the company’s reputation after inheriting it.
Now another part of Charles’s legacy had surfaced.
“Where are the recordings?”
Thomas said most were destroyed after Charles died.
“Most?”
“One archive remained.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Adrian stared.
Thomas finally admitted Charles had once asked him to retrieve a cassette from the music room.
The cassette contained a conversation between Claire and Lydia.
Thomas heard only a few seconds.
Claire said:
“If you’re right, the foundation wasn’t the beginning.”
Then Charles entered and took the tape.
Adrian looked at Claire’s note again.
“What foundation?”
The Hartwell Children’s Foundation.
Adrian knew it.
His father had served on its board.
Emily suddenly felt uncomfortable.
Her own mother had once mentioned Hartwell.
Emily had been six when the foundation helped pay for her father’s cancer treatment.
She had not thought about it in years.
“Sir,” she said.
Adrian looked at her.
“My family received help from Hartwell.”
Thomas’s face changed.
“When?”
“About twenty years ago.”
“What was your father’s name?”
“Michael Bennett.”
Thomas stared at her.
Emily noticed.
“What?”
Thomas looked at Adrian.
“Michael Bennett worked for Vale Holdings.”
Emily’s stomach tightened.
“No. My father was an accountant.”
“For Vale Holdings.”
She had never known.
Her father died when she was seven.
Her mother rarely spoke about his work.
Adrian asked, “Why does that matter?”
Thomas swallowed.
“Because Michael Bennett was the employee who first reported missing money from Hartwell.”
Emily felt the floor shift beneath her.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“He died of cancer.”
Thomas nodded.
“I know.”
Adrian looked at Emily, then at Claire’s note.
This was no longer a coincidence.
Emily had arrived at Blackwood Manor through an ordinary domestic staffing agency.
Or so she believed.
Adrian asked Thomas who hired her.
“Mrs. Whitmore handles household staffing.”
Margaret Whitmore had managed Blackwood Manor for twenty-three years.
She had worked for Charles Vale.
Adrian immediately called her.
No answer.
They searched her office.
Empty.
Her coat was gone.
So was her car.
On her desk sat a staffing file.
Emily Bennett.
Across the first page, written in red ink:
APPROVED — C.V. REQUEST.
Adrian stared.
“C.V.?”
Emily whispered, “Claire Vale?”
Thomas shook his head.
“That file was created six weeks ago.”
Claire had been missing for ten years.
May you like
Unless someone had used her initials.
Or unless Claire Vale was not as gone as everyone believed.
