Chapter 16 - THE DEAD MOTHER
Caroline disconnected before Daniel could speak again.
For several minutes he stood completely still.
Lydia sat down.
“No.”
Emily looked between them.
“You both heard her?”
Lydia nodded slowly.
“That was Mom.”
Eleanor Voss had lied about Caroline’s death.
Or Charles had.
Or everyone had.
Federal agents traced Victor’s call to St. Matthew’s Station.
They found his phone.
Blood on the platform.
No body.
Caroline remained missing.
Eleanor refused to speak.
Until Emily visited.
“You knew,” Emily said.
Eleanor smiled weakly.
“About Caroline?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“Closer than you think.”
Emily hated riddles now.
“Did she kill my mother?”
Eleanor looked toward her.
“That is finally the right question.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Answer her.”
Eleanor ignored him.
“Caroline believed she could take Meridian from me.”
“Could she?”
“She almost did.”
After her supposed death, Caroline disappeared into Meridian itself.
She became an administrator.
Then a rival.
For years Eleanor and Caroline fought for control of the network.
Charles was trapped between them.
Grace eventually discovered Caroline was alive.
Emily whispered.
“That’s who Mom was meeting.”
Eleanor nodded.
Room 1708.
Not Victor.
Not Lydia.
Not Evelyn.
Caroline.
Grace had discovered her dead mother-in-law alive.
Caroline promised to help destroy Meridian.
Grace trusted her.
That trust killed her.
“Caroline ordered the crash?” Daniel asked.
Eleanor smiled sadly.
“My daughter always believed sacrifice could be justified.”
Daniel backed away.
His entire childhood had been built around missing his mother.
Now he learned she had chosen not to return.
Worse.
She may have murdered his wife.
Emily thought about Grace’s letter.
The person who betrayed me is someone you love.
Daniel loved Caroline even after twenty-seven years.
The person who saved me is someone you were taught to hate.
Thomas Mercer had tried to help.
It fit.
Almost everything fit.
But something remained wrong.
Emily returned to Samuel Price’s shop.
She brought the broken violin bridge.
Samuel examined the scratches again.
Emily remembered her mother’s red thread.
The unfinished composition.
The hollow floorboard.
Grace never hid one clue in one place.
She layered them.
Emily held the bridge beneath angled light.
Tiny letters appeared inside an old repair scratch.
C.B.
Then numbers.
6-17-9.
Samuel frowned.
“Measures?”
Emily opened Grace’s score.
Measure six.
Seventeen.
Nine.
The notes translated to three letters.
N.
O.
T.
Next marks.
C.
A.
R.
Emily stared.
NOT CAR.
She continued.
O.
L.
I.
N.
E.
NOT CAROLINE.
Emily stopped breathing.
Grace had left a warning.
Caroline was involved.
But she was not the killer.
Daniel arrived minutes later.
Emily showed him.
“If Mom thought Caroline killed her, why hide this?”
Daniel stared.
“Because someone was framing Caroline too.”
Torres reexamined Grace’s recovered files.
One name appeared near the crash logistics.
C.B.
Everyone assumed Caroline Blackwood.
But there was another C.B.
Charles Blackwood.
Impossible.
Charles had died two years before Grace.
Unless the initials meant something else.
Company Branch.
Code Base.
Or a person using Charles’s old credentials.
Emily remembered Eleanor’s words.
You Blackwoods confuse funerals with death.
She looked at Daniel.
“Was Grandpa Charles cremated?”
Daniel frowned.
“Yes.”
“Did you see him before?”
“He died overseas.”
“Who identified him?”
Daniel went still.
Victor Sloane.
The missing CFO.
Torres searched death records.
Charles Blackwood died in Switzerland.
Closed casket.
Immediate cremation due to “medical circumstances.”
Paperwork signed by Victor.
Daniel whispered.
“No.”
Then someone knocked on Samuel’s shop door.
A homeless-looking man stood outside.
Gray beard.
Heavy coat.
Samuel opened the door.
The man looked directly at Daniel.
Daniel’s knees nearly gave way.
Emily had only seen him in photographs.
But she recognized him.
Charles Blackwood.
Her grandfather.
Alive.
He looked at Emily.
Then at the broken violin.
“I was afraid Grace would fail.”
Daniel could barely speak.
“You’re dead.”
Charles shook his head.
“No.”
May you like
He looked toward the street.
“But if Caroline finds out I came here, I will be very soon.”
