Chapter 11 - The Woman Who Was Dead.
Marcus Rourke's wife, Vivian, had been declared dead after a private plane went down off the coast of Baja California twelve years earlier.
The wreckage was recovered.
Her body was not.
Eleanor remembered the funeral.
She remembered Marcus standing beside an empty casket while Brooke, then twenty years old and introduced as a family friend, watched from the back of the chapel.
At the time, Eleanor had not known Brooke was his daughter.
Now that memory felt staged too.
Lena pulled archived records before dawn.
Vivian Rourke had inherited significant money from her father, a regional construction developer.
She and Marcus had married young.
They had separated privately several years before the crash but never filed for divorce.
Brooke's birth certificate did not list Marcus as her father.
Her mother was recorded as Anne Halston.
"Could Vivian be Anne Halston?" Daniel asked.
Lena compared photographs.
Anne Halston had almost no digital history before Brooke's birth.
The few available images showed a brunette woman photographed from a distance.
Vivian had been blonde.
The facial structure was similar enough to raise questions and different enough to prove nothing.
Eleanor looked at Sophie.
"Are you certain Thomas said Mrs. Rourke?"
Sophie nodded.
"I listened to it over and over before I called you."
"Did you ever see a woman with him?"
"At the storage facility once."
Daniel turned sharply.
"You were there?"
"Mr. Bell took me after the party because he wanted me to delete the video."
"Why didn't he just take your phone?"
Sophie looked embarrassed.
"He did."
Then she smiled faintly.
"He didn't know my phone backed up automatically."
Lena almost smiled.
"Good habit."
Sophie continued.
"There was a woman inside the unit."
"Age?" Eleanor asked.
"Maybe late fifties."
"Hair?"
"Brown."
"Did Thomas call her anything?"
"No."
"Did she speak?"
Sophie hesitated.
"She said Brooke was getting emotional."
Daniel's face tightened.
"Anything else?"
"She said, 'That girl always mistakes attention for control.'"
Eleanor felt a chill.
It sounded like something a mother might say.
By seven, Lena had found a property record tied to one of Greenway's shell companies.
A small house in Santa Barbara had been purchased eleven years earlier through a trust called VMR Holdings.
The initials could mean nothing.
Or Vivian Marcus Rourke.
Eleanor refused to wait.
Lena brought two investigators and insisted Daniel remain at the estate.
"The wedding starts in five hours," Lena said.
"If this is a trap, we need someone here."
Daniel looked at his mother.
"You're going?"
"Yes."
"Of course you are."
"You sound like Lena."
"That should terrify you."
The Santa Barbara house sat behind a high hedge overlooking the ocean.
No one answered the front gate.
A black SUV was parked in the driveway.
The same model that had carried Sophie away from the gala.
Lena photographed the plate.
Registered to VMR Holdings.
"We have enough to request law enforcement assistance," Lena said.
"Do it."
They did not enter.
They waited from a public road two houses away.
Thirty minutes later, the gate opened.
A woman drove out.
She had dark brown hair, oversized sunglasses, and a scarf around her neck.
She looked ordinary until Eleanor saw the profile.
The nose.
The chin.
The slight downward angle of the mouth.
Vivian Rourke.
Older.
Changed.
Alive.
Lena's investigator followed at a distance while Eleanor remained in the car.
"If Vivian is alive, Marcus lied for twelve years," Eleanor said.
"Maybe Marcus doesn't know."
"Thomas reports to her using his name."
"Fair point."
Eleanor stared at the ocean.
"Why fake a death?"
"Money."
"Whose?"
"That is the question."
The investigator called.
Vivian had entered a private bank branch downtown.
Twenty minutes later, she left carrying a slim document case.
Then she drove toward Los Angeles.
Toward Vale House.
Eleanor's phone rang.
Brooke.
"Where are you?"
"Why?"
"The ceremony is in two hours."
"I thought you didn't want me there."
Brooke was silent.
Then she said, "I need to talk to you before it starts."
"About your father?"
Another silence.
"Daniel told you."
"You told us."
"I made a mistake."
"Which one?"
"Thinking I could keep everyone safe by choosing what they knew."
Eleanor almost laughed at the family resemblance to Marcus.
"Where are you?"
"The bridal suite."
"Stay there."
"Eleanor."
"What?"
Brooke's voice shook.
"If a woman named Vivian comes to the estate, do not let her near Daniel."
The call ended.
Eleanor stared at the phone.
Lena had heard every word.
"Brooke knows she's alive."
"Yes."
"Question is how long."
They drove back fast.
Vale House had transformed while they were gone.
White flowers covered the south lawn.
Guests were arriving in black cars.
The ceremony pavilion gleamed beside the reflecting pool.
News crews waited beyond the gates because the viral scandal had turned a private wedding into public obsession.
Eleanor entered through the service wing.
Brooke was waiting in the bridal suite alone.
Her wedding dress was simple compared with the elaborate gowns Eleanor had expected.
Ivory silk.
No crystals.
No dramatic train.
Brooke looked younger without the armor of a public event.
"Is Vivian your mother?" Eleanor asked.
Brooke closed her eyes.
"Yes."
"Is Anne Halston Vivian Rourke?"
"Yes."
"You knew Marcus was your father."
"Yes."
"You knew Vivian was alive."
Brooke's eyes opened.
"Not until six months ago."
"Explain."
Brooke sat at the dressing table.
"My mother disappeared when I was eight."
"I was raised by her sister, who let me use Halston."
"Marcus paid for everything but never publicly acknowledged me."
"When I was twenty, he told me Vivian had died in the crash."
"I believed him."
Eleanor thought of the funeral.
"You were there."
"In the back."
"Why didn't he introduce you as his daughter?"
Brooke gave a bitter smile.
"Because Marcus Rourke has always treated truth like a luxury item."
"How did you learn Vivian was alive?"
"She contacted me six months ago."
"Why?"
"She said Marcus had stolen money that belonged to her."
"From where?"
"Vale."
Eleanor's pulse changed.
"She claimed he used Meridian to move her inheritance into investments and then lost it."
"She said Jonathan found out."
"She said Marcus planned to frame Daniel if Jonathan exposed him."
"That matches Jonathan's letter."
Brooke stared at her.
"What letter?"
Eleanor did not answer.
"Why stage the hose incident?"
Brooke looked ashamed for the first time.
"Vivian told me you had received Jonathan's message."
"How did she know?"
"I don't know."
"You told Thomas to make sure I saw the Greenway tag."
"Yes."
"You humiliated me to lead me toward the evidence."
"I thought if I simply handed you records, Marcus would know I had turned against him."
Eleanor stared at her.
"So you decided spraying me in front of hundreds of people was subtle?"
Brooke actually flinched.
"I wanted you angry enough to follow the tag without asking me questions."
"You succeeded."
"I didn't expect you to slap me."
"Neither did I."
"After it happened, Vivian told me to use the video."
"And you did."
"Yes."
"You tried to have me stripped of authority."
Brooke's eyes filled.
"I had to make Marcus believe I was still following the plan."
"What plan?"
Brooke stood.
"The wedding."
Eleanor felt the pieces shift again.
"Marcus thinks Daniel will give me the proxy."
"Vivian thinks I will give it to her."
"And what were you planning to do?"
Brooke looked toward the window where guests were taking their seats.
"Give it to neither of them."
"Then why marry Daniel?"
Brooke turned back.
"Because that part was real."
Eleanor wanted to believe her.
She did not allow herself the luxury.
"Why did you date him in the first place?"
Brooke's expression broke.
"Marcus introduced us deliberately."
Daniel's worst fear was true.
"But I did not know why at first."
"When did you find out?"
"Three months into the relationship."
"And you stayed."
"Yes."
"You lied to him for more than a year."
"Yes."
Brooke wiped a tear away.
"You can hate me for that."
"I don't have time."
Eleanor stepped closer.
"Where is Vivian going?"
Brooke looked toward the door.
"She wants the proxy signed, then she wants Marcus publicly blamed for everything."
"Is he guilty?"
"Some of it."
"Some?"
"Marcus created Meridian."
"He moved the first money."
"But Vivian took over the accounts before the plane crash."
Eleanor felt cold.
"The dead woman has been running Greenway."
Brooke nodded.
"For years."
A knock sounded at the door.
Daniel entered in his tuxedo.
He stopped when he saw his mother and Brooke together.
"What did I miss?"
Eleanor looked at Brooke.
Brooke looked at Daniel.
Then a voice came from the hallway behind him.
"Only the part where your bride finally told the truth."
Marcus Rourke stepped into the room.
He was holding a small pistol-shaped object.
Lena moved instantly.
Then everyone realized it was not a weapon.
It was a remote control.
Marcus pressed one button.
May you like
Every screen in Vale House went black.
THE WOMAN IN BLUE
