Chapter 5 - His Grandmother Knew My Mother—and Had Been Waiting for Me
I returned to the estate shaking with anger.
Eleanor Blackwell waited in the conservatory.
She wore a dark green dress.
Her cane rested across her knees.
"You knew my mother," I said.
Eleanor looked at the documents.
"I wondered when those would surface."
"Did you sign them?"
"Yes."
The answer struck harder than any denial.
Damon stood behind me.
"Grandmother. Explain."
Eleanor had funded a hospital charity decades earlier.
Bluebird Holdings had managed its property investments.
Her signature was legitimate.
The document's date was not.
"I signed a blank authorization," she said.
"And trusted the wrong attorney."
I wanted to hate her.
Instead, I watched her hands tremble.
She produced a letter from my mother.
The paper was yellowed and creased.
My mother had warned Eleanor about missing funds.
She had also named a witness.
A hospital accountant called Grace Holloway.
"Where is Grace?" I asked.
Eleanor looked toward the garden.
"She disappeared nineteen years ago."
Damon searched the letter.
A second page had been torn away.
"Who removed it?"
Eleanor swallowed.
"My son."
Damon's father.
The man everyone believed died in a boating accident.
Eleanor pressed a key into my hand.
"There is something in his old safe."
We went to the library.
Damon opened the safe behind a portrait.
Inside lay a passport, cash, and a photograph.
The man in the photograph was older.
His hair had turned white.
But I recognized him instantly.
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He was Dr. Adrian Vale.
The physician who had ordered my mother's transfer.
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