Chapter 16 - The Original at Home.
Claire knew exactly which home Thomas meant.
The Vale mansion on Bellweather Lane had belonged to the family for nearly eighty years.
Claire had not slept there since the week after her father's funeral.
Eleanor still lived in it.
The detective warned Claire that four handwritten words were not enough to justify tearing apart a private residence.
Martin Hale solved that problem.
He produced a notarized memorandum Thomas had filed with him seventeen years earlier.
The memorandum stated that original records related to the Vale trust would remain in Thomas's home office until transferred to independent counsel.
Those records were legally part of the estate.
By late afternoon, investigators had authority to preserve the office and prevent destruction of estate documents.
Claire drove to Bellweather Lane with Serena and Hale while Evelyn stayed with a trusted child advocate and two officers.
Leaving her daughter again felt unbearable.
But Claire refused to bring her into Eleanor's house.
The mansion looked exactly as Claire remembered.
Gray stone walls.
Black iron gates.
Tall windows reflecting a sky heavy with rain.
Eleanor stood in the entrance hall when investigators arrived.
She wore a cream suit instead of gold sequins.
Without the ballroom lights, she looked smaller.
She did not look weaker.
"You brought police into your father's home," Eleanor said.
Claire stepped across the threshold.
"You spent seventeen years making sure it never felt like his home again."
Eleanor's eyes flicked toward Serena.
"And you brought the runaway bride."
Serena met her gaze.
"Better than becoming the trapped wife."
Investigators sealed Thomas's office.
The room had been preserved like a museum.
His books still lined the shelves.
His fountain pen sat inside a glass case Eleanor had installed after his death.
Claire almost laughed at the cruelty of it.
Eleanor had turned the man she betrayed into decoration.
Hale pointed toward a grandfather clock in the corner.
"Thomas hated that clock."
Claire looked at him.
"Then why did he keep it?"
"Because your grandmother gave it to him."
Claire remembered her father's habit of complaining that the clock ran seven minutes slow.
She also remembered something else.
When she was a child, Thomas used to hide birthday presents behind its lower panel.
An investigator opened the panel.
Nothing was there.
Eleanor smiled faintly from the doorway.
"Disappointed?"
Claire ignored her.
She crouched and ran her fingers along the wood.
One screw was newer than the others.
The investigator removed it.
A false back loosened.
Behind it sat a narrow steel tube wrapped in waxed cloth.
Eleanor's smile vanished.
Inside the tube was a microcassette, a signed letter, and a small envelope of photographs.
Hale whispered Thomas's name.
Claire opened the letter first.
The first line was simple.
Claire, believe what you saw, even if everyone tells you that you imagined it.
Claire looked at Eleanor.
Her mother had gone completely still.
An officer placed the microcassette into an evidence pouch.
Then a crash sounded from the second floor.
Everyone turned.
A detective ran toward the stairs.
Victor Dane appeared at the top landing carrying a metal trash bin filled with burning paper.
Smoke curled toward the ceiling.
"Stop!"
Victor froze.
Then he dropped the bin.
Several half-burned pages scattered across the marble stairs.
One landed faceup near Claire's feet.
She recognized the heading immediately.
May you like
VALE MOTOR WORKS - EXECUTIVE SERVICE AUTHORIZATION.
At the bottom was Eleanor's signature.
