Chapter 9 - The Sister Nobody Mentioned.
Sebastian had not heard Eleanor’s voice in twenty-seven years before the call.
He remembered the exact date she left because it was the day their father removed her photograph from the main staircase.
Eleanor had refused an arranged business marriage, publicly criticized a Hawthorne land deal, and finally threatened to expose their father’s private accounts.
The older Hawthorne responded by cutting her off financially and socially.
Sebastian helped her leave.
He gave her cash, a car registered to a friend, and the address of a woman in Maine who owed him a favor.
After that, Eleanor disappeared by choice.
For the first few years, she sent postcards without return addresses.
Then the postcards stopped.
Grant listened with growing anger.
“My father knew about her.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“He was nineteen when she left.”
“That is old enough to remember a sister.”
Sebastian looked tired.
“Your father learned early that silence was the fee for staying inside the family.”
Grant hated the sentence because he understood it.
Evelyn sat beside the window with Bruno at her feet.
“What did Eleanor say when she called last month?”
Sebastian gripped the handle of his cane.
“She said a man named Victor Lang had contacted her through an old trust attorney.”
Grant’s expression tightened.
“Why?”
“She did not know.”
“Did she meet him?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“A hotel outside Portland.”
“What did he want?”
“Medical history.”
Evelyn looked at Grant.
Sebastian continued.
“Victor told her Hawthorne Holdings was updating private family health records for insurance planning.”
Grant laughed bitterly.
“She believed that?”
“She had been out of the family for decades.”
Sebastian’s voice hardened.
“And Victor is very good at sounding reasonable.”
“What happened after the meeting?”
“She became suspicious because he asked for a cheek swab.”
Evelyn’s fingers tightened around the DNA report.
“Did she give it?”
“No.”
“Then how did they get a sample?”
Sebastian looked down.
“Eleanor had surgery twelve years ago at a hospital whose archives were later acquired by Meridian.”
Grant felt the pattern snap into place.
Victor had access to Meridian before recommending its sale.
Someone could have pulled old genetic or pathology material belonging to Eleanor.
Then the company moved out of Hawthorne control through a buyer connected to Northcross.
Evelyn whispered, “This began before my crash.”
“Long before,” Grant said.
Sebastian nodded.
“Eleanor told me Victor frightened her.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said he asked whether she had children.”
Grant frowned.
“Does she?”
Sebastian looked at him.
“I do not know.”
“After twenty-seven years, that is all you know?”
“I respected her wish to disappear.”
Grant wanted to argue.
Then he looked at Evelyn and understood what disappearing could mean to someone who felt threatened.
“What did you do after Eleanor called?”
“I confronted Victor.”
“When?”
“The day before Evelyn’s memorial.”
Grant stared at him.
“You confronted Victor and still let him speak at the memorial.”
“I had no proof of anything.”
“You never tell me anything until it becomes catastrophic.”
Sebastian’s mouth tightened.
“That is a family tradition you have maintained very well yourself.”
Evelyn looked between them.
“Enough.”
Both men stopped.
She pointed at Sebastian.
“What did Victor say?”
“He claimed he was helping update a historical family health database requested by the board.”
“No such request exists,” Grant said.
“I know.”
“Did you tell Eleanor?”
“I tried to call her back.”
“And?”
“The number was disconnected.”
Grant looked at Elias.
“Can we find the hotel record?”
“Probably.”
“Do it.”
Elias left.
Rebecca remained downstairs, deliberately excluded from the discussion.
Grant disliked the secrecy, but the missing sample code had shifted the investigation.
They needed to know who had access to information before sharing anything else.
Evelyn walked toward the old nursery desk.
“There is another possibility.”
Grant looked at her.
“The body in the car may have been related to Eleanor, not me.”
Sebastian’s expression changed.
“If Eleanor had a daughter.”
“Or a sister we do not know about,” Evelyn said.
Sebastian shook his head.
“Our mother had no other children.”
Grant thought of the report.
First-degree or close second-degree relationship.
“If the E.H. sample belongs to Eleanor, the body could be her child.”
Sebastian lowered himself into a chair.
For the first time, he looked truly old.
“I asked her if she had children once, years ago.”
“What did she say?” Evelyn asked.
“She told me some questions cost too much to answer.”
Grant looked away.
That sounded like a Hawthorne sentence too.
A soft knock came at the nursery door.
Mara entered with a folded piece of paper.
“This was pushed under the staff entrance.”
Grant took it.
No one had seen the delivery.
The note contained a Portland hotel address and one room number.
Below it were six words.
Ask for Anna Reed, not Eleanor.
Evelyn stared at the handwriting.
“It is not mine.”
Sebastian shook his head.
“Not Eleanor’s either.”
Grant turned the paper over.
A small symbol had been drawn on the back.
Thumb and pinky extended.
The same gesture Lucy had made.
Mara whispered, “That is Evelyn’s signal.”
Evelyn looked unsettled.
“But I did not send this.”
Grant looked down at Bruno.
The dog was staring toward the door, ears raised.
“Who else knew the signal?”
Evelyn answered slowly.
“The trainer.”
“Mara.”
“Yes.”
“Cole?”
She thought about it.
“He watched me train Bruno many times.”
Grant folded the note.
“Then Cole wants us to find Eleanor.”
“Or someone wants us to think he does,” Evelyn said.
Grant’s phone vibrated.
Victor Lang’s name appeared on the screen.
Everyone stared at it.
Grant answered on speaker.
“Victor.”
Victor’s familiar voice sounded warm and tired.
“Grant, I just landed.”
Grant looked at Sebastian.
“From London?”
A tiny pause.
“Paris.”
The lie was effortless.
Grant’s company flight record showed Victor had landed nearby four hours ago.
“I heard you had a difficult day.”
Grant nearly smiled.
News traveled impossibly fast among men who claimed not to know anything.
“Who told you?”
“Sebastian mentioned a security issue.”
Sebastian’s eyes widened in outrage.
Grant held up one hand to keep him silent.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“I am looking at him now.”
Victor stopped speaking.
Grant watched Sebastian shake his head violently.
Then Victor laughed.
“Perhaps I misunderstood.”
Grant’s voice remained pleasant.
“Where are you?”
“On my way home.”
“Come here.”
“I am exhausted.”
“So am I.”
Another pause.
Grant added, “We found something in the old Meridian files.”
Victor’s breathing changed almost imperceptibly.
“What kind of something?”
Grant looked at Evelyn.
She nodded once.
“A DNA record.”
Victor did not answer.
Grant continued.
“It has Eleanor Hawthorne’s name on it.”
Sebastian mouthed, What are you doing?
Grant ignored him.
Victor finally spoke.
“I do not know that name.”
Grant smiled without warmth.
“That is interesting.”
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor says she knows yours.”
Silence.
Then the call disconnected.
Grant lowered the phone.
Sebastian stood.
“You told him she is alive.”
“No.”
“You implied it.”
“I wanted to see whether he would run.”
Evelyn’s expression was tense.
“And if he does?”
“We follow.”
Elias returned at that moment.
His face told Grant he had found something.
“The Portland hotel still has records from last month.”
“Eleanor stayed there?”
“Anna Reed did.”
Sebastian closed his eyes.
Elias continued.
“She checked in for three nights.”
“With anyone?”
“One adjoining room was booked under another name.”
Grant expected Victor Lang.
Elias looked directly at him.
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Before Victor called, Eleanor’s old hotel record revealed another detail.
Anna Reed had paid for her room with a prepaid card purchased in Bangor, Maine.
The card had also paid for a train ticket to Portland three days before Victor contacted her.
Eleanor had been moving before she knew anyone was searching.
Rebecca believed that meant Eleanor had already sensed danger.
Sebastian disagreed.
“My sister has lived like someone is about to knock on the door for twenty-seven years.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Fear becomes routine.”
Sebastian met her eyes.
“Yes.”
Grant noticed the exchange.
Two women from completely different generations had learned the same survival habit because of the same family’s secrets.
He disliked the symmetry.
Mara later remembered another detail from her mother’s stories.
Eleanor used the name Anna because their mother once read Anna Karenina every winter.
Sebastian smiled unexpectedly.
“She hated that book.”
“Then why use the name?” Grant asked.
“Because our father loved it.”
Eleanor had chosen an alias that belonged to her family but would never appear in any legal record.
It was both hiding and defiance.
The more Grant learned about his aunt, the more he understood why Claire had risked contacting her.
Claire had inherited none of the Hawthorne name and much of the Hawthorne stubbornness.
That thought made the possibility of her death feel less abstract.
May you like
She was becoming a person before they had even confirmed what happened to her.
THE WOMAN BEHIND THE GLASS
