Chapter 4 - A Photograph With One Face Cut Out.
Vanessa entered the library with an attorney beside her and fury carefully arranged across her face.
The attorney introduced himself as Martin Cole and immediately objected to the presence of the old case files.
Detective Ortiz ignored him.
Daniel locked his attention on Vanessa.
Eleanor stood behind the desk holding the photograph of Lena and the two sisters.
"Did you own a blue Volvo station wagon in 2003?"
Vanessa laughed softly.
"This is absurd."
"Answer her," Daniel said.
Cole raised a hand.
"My client is not required to answer questions in an informal setting."
Eleanor never looked at him.
"Did you own the car?"
Vanessa's eyes moved toward the cassette player.
She understood immediately what they had heard.
"For a few months."
Eleanor's fingers tightened around the photograph.
"Did it have a silver crane decal on the rear window?"
Vanessa hesitated.
That hesitation was more damaging than a confession.
"I don't remember."
Maya spoke from near the fireplace.
"You remember a pendant from twenty-three years ago, but not the car you drove?"
Vanessa turned toward her.
"You should be very careful with your accusations."
Maya held up the jade.
"I've had people telling me to be careful my whole life."
"I'm getting tired of it."
Cole leaned toward Vanessa and whispered something.
She shook her head.
"No."
Then she looked at Eleanor.
"You want the truth?"
"I have wanted nothing else for twenty-three years."
"That is not true."
Vanessa's voice sharpened.
"You wanted someone to blame."
"First Alice."
"Then Jonathan."
"Then yourself."
"Now me."
Eleanor's expression did not change.
"Were you wearing my jade pendant the day Lena disappeared?"
Vanessa's mouth closed.
Ortiz watched her carefully.
"Ms. Zhao, Samuel Price recorded a statement saying he saw it."
Vanessa finally looked at the detective.
"Samuel Price was an alcoholic."
"He had been sober nine years when he made the statement."
Vanessa's jaw tightened.
Ortiz continued.
"He also received a large payment from Peter Lang three weeks later."
"I knew nothing about that."
"Maybe."
Ortiz closed the folder.
"We will find out."
Cole stepped forward.
"This conversation is over."
Vanessa reached for the door.
Eleanor's voice stopped her.
"Where is my pendant?"
Vanessa turned.
"You told police it was stolen from your bedroom three days after Lena vanished."
Eleanor moved closer.
"If Sam saw you wearing it that afternoon, then the theft report was a lie."
"Unless he was wrong."
"Where is it?"
Vanessa stared at her sister.
For a moment, the two women looked less like executives and more like the young sisters in the old photograph.
Then Vanessa said something unexpected.
"Ask Jonathan."
Eleanor went still.
"Jonathan is dead."
"Then ask his safe."
Daniel frowned.
"What safe?"
Vanessa looked at him.
"The one your mother pretends does not exist."
Eleanor's face hardened.
"Stop."
Maya noticed the fear immediately.
"What safe?"
Daniel looked at Eleanor.
"Mother?"
Eleanor turned away.
Vanessa smiled without warmth.
"There it is."
"The great Eleanor Vale finally found a secret she doesn't want exposed."
Cole touched Vanessa's arm.
"We should go."
Vanessa nodded.
Before leaving, she looked directly at Maya.
"Alice Chen loved you."
Maya's breath caught.
"How do you know that?"
Vanessa opened the door.
"Because she chose you over all of us."
Then she walked out.
Daniel stared after her.
"That sounded like an admission."
Ortiz shook her head.
"It sounded designed to make us think it was one."
Maya turned toward Eleanor.
"What safe?"
Eleanor did not answer.
Daniel's patience finally broke.
"If we're doing this, we do all of it."
"No more family secrets."
Eleanor looked at him.
"Your father kept a private archive in the old Vale house."
"The lake house?"
"No."
She hesitated.
"The house on Hawthorne Street."
Daniel stared.
"You told me that property was sold before I was born."
"It was transferred into a holding company."
"Which means you still own it."
"Yes."
Maya crossed her arms.
"Why lie about a house?"
Eleanor's eyes moved to the photograph.
"Because it was where we lived when Lena disappeared."
Maya felt the answer in her chest.
"You kept her room."
Eleanor nodded.
"For twenty-three years?"
"Yes."
Daniel looked stunned.
"And Dad's safe is there?"
"Behind the study wall."
Ortiz closed the evidence box.
"Then nobody enters until we obtain a warrant or written consent."
Eleanor took a key from her purse.
"You have my consent."
Two hours later, Maya stood outside a stone Georgian house at the edge of an old coastal neighborhood.
Rain had begun to fall.
The windows were dark, and ivy covered part of the east wall.
Maya had expected a preserved mansion.
Instead, the place looked forgotten.
Eleanor unlocked the front door.
The smell of cedar, dust, and closed rooms drifted out.
Maya stepped inside first.
A grand staircase curved beneath a stained-glass window.
Nothing moved.
Daniel entered behind her.
Ortiz and another detective followed.
Eleanor remained on the threshold for several seconds before forcing herself inside.
"Where is the study?" Ortiz asked.
Eleanor pointed down the hall.
They passed family portraits covered in linen sheets.
Maya stopped at one.
She pulled the cloth away.
A younger Eleanor stared back from the painting beside Jonathan Vale.
Between them stood a little girl in a pale green dress.
Maya's throat tightened.
The child's hair was dark and straight.
A jade pendant rested against her chest.
Daniel stood beside Maya.
"She has your eyes."
Maya almost told him not to say it.
Instead she reached toward the painted child and stopped before touching the canvas.
Eleanor watched from behind them.
"That was painted six weeks before she disappeared."
Maya lowered the cloth.
"Show us the safe."
The study occupied the back corner of the house.
Eleanor moved a framed map aside and pressed two concealed panels in the woodwork.
A steel door appeared.
She entered a six-digit code.
Nothing happened.
"Jonathan changed it."
Daniel looked around.
"Could it be a date?"
Eleanor tried Lena's birthday.
Denied.
She tried their wedding anniversary.
Denied.
Maya stared at the jade pendant.
"Try the date she disappeared."
Eleanor looked at her.
Then she entered 060203.
The lock clicked.
No one spoke.
Inside the safe were several document envelopes, a black ledger, a small velvet box, and a stack of photographs tied with string.
Ortiz photographed everything before touching it.
Eleanor reached toward the velvet box.
Ortiz stopped her.
"Let me."
She opened it with gloved hands.
Inside lay a second jade pendant.
Eleanor's matching pendant.
Maya's heart raced.
"Vanessa told the truth."
Eleanor stared at the stone.
"At least about this."
Ortiz examined the clasp.
"There is something under it."
She lifted the insert.
A folded note had been hidden beneath the velvet.
The paper was yellow with age.
Eleanor recognized Jonathan's handwriting before Ortiz unfolded it.
The message was short.
ELLIE,
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN EITHER I AM DEAD OR LENA HAS COME HOME.
DO NOT TRUST THE STORY WE WERE GIVEN.
ALICE DID NOT STEAL OUR DAUGHTER.
I FOUND THE WOMAN WHO PAID HER.
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Ortiz continued reading.
I WAS WRONG ABOUT WHO SHE WAS WORKING FOR.
THE PERSON WHO ORDERED IT WAS IN OUR HOUSE THE NIGHT BEFORE LENA DISAPPEARED.
I HID THE PROOF WHERE ONLY LENA WOULD THINK TO LOOK.
Maya stared at the final line.
"Where would a two-year-old think to look?"
Eleanor's eyes lifted toward the ceiling.
A sound escaped her that was almost a sob.
"Her room."
They hurried upstairs.
Eleanor opened the third door on the left.
The room beyond had remained frozen in time.
A white wooden bed stood beneath a faded canopy.
Stuffed animals lined a shelf.
A painted moon and stars covered the ceiling.
Maya stepped inside and felt an inexplicable pressure behind her eyes.
She did not remember the room.
Yet something about the small brass music box on the dresser made her stop.
She crossed toward it.
Eleanor whispered behind her.
"That was her favorite thing."
Maya lifted the lid.
A tiny porcelain rabbit rotated to a soft melody.
Under the rabbit was a removable wooden platform.
Maya's fingers found the edge without thinking.
She pulled it up.
Daniel inhaled sharply.
Beneath the platform lay another photograph.
Someone had cut one person's face out of it with scissors.
The picture showed Alice Chen holding two-year-old Lena beside the greenhouse.
A woman stood next to Alice.
Her face was missing.
But her left hand remained visible.
At the base of the thumb was a pale scar.
And around her wrist was a bracelet made of six black onyx stones.
Eleanor stared at it.
"That was not Vanessa's bracelet."
Maya looked at her.
"Whose was it?"
May you like
Eleanor's face turned white.
"Mine."
