Chapter 5 - A Father's Blood
The metal case changed the investigation.
Until that night, the federal team had evidence of Catherine's kidnapping and Daria's financial crimes.
Now they had reason to reopen the death of Thomas Kincaid.
Samuel sat beside Noah's hospital bed while Catherine slept in a chair with Penelope against her chest.
Noah was small for six years old.
A burn scar ran from his left ear to his collar.
When he woke, he stared at Samuel and began screaming.
Catherine rose instantly.
"Noah, it is me."
The boy recognized her voice.
His panic softened into sobs.
"You came back."
"I promised."
He clung to her while Samuel turned away to give them privacy.
Ortiz entered with a preliminary laboratory report.
Thomas Kincaid's preserved blood contained traces of a synthetic compound that could trigger fatal arrhythmia while disappearing rapidly from tissue.
Dr. Weston had participated in an early clinical trial involving the compound.
"My father was murdered," Samuel said.
Ortiz did not soften the truth.
"The evidence strongly suggests it."
"By my mother?"
"We can prove Weston had access. We cannot yet prove who ordered him."
Catherine looked at Noah.
"He might know."
The boy stiffened.
Ortiz crouched several feet away and asked permission before speaking to him.
Noah remembered his mother arguing with a white-haired lady at Blackthorn.
He remembered the lady saying that Thomas should have listened.
He remembered Dr. Weston washing a glass vial in the sink.
"Did the lady have a necklace?" Catherine asked.
Noah nodded.
"A shiny snowflake."
Daria's diamond pendant had been designed as a six-pointed snowflake.
She wore it during every formal appearance.
The evidence was still circumstantial, but the circle was closing.
Samuel received a message from the Kincaid board.
An emergency meeting had been called for eight in the morning.
Daria intended to have him declared mentally unfit.
She had already circulated security footage showing Samuel fleeing the mansion with an unknown woman and a child.
The footage omitted Catherine's face.
It also omitted the armed men at the gate.
"She is taking the company," Samuel said.
Catherine studied the message.
"No."
"She has five directors."
"She is not taking the company. She is trying to force you into the boardroom."
"Why?"
"Because the original will is still missing."
Daria believed Samuel had found his father's letter.
If Samuel appeared at the meeting, she could monitor his movements or detain him through a friendly judge.
If he stayed away, she could remove him and seize operational control.
Either choice benefited her.
Catherine walked to the window.
"Your father expected this."
Samuel unfolded the letter again.
It is hidden where she buried the only thing she ever loved.
Saint Orison Cemetery lay forty miles north of the city.
The storm had closed most roads.
Ortiz refused to authorize a trip without backup.
Samuel agreed publicly.
Privately, he called Arthur Vale.
The old butler answered on the fourth ring.
His voice was weak.
"I am alive."
Samuel closed his eyes.
"Where are you?"
"In the old hunting lodge. Your mother's men left me unconscious in the east wing. One of the maids found me."
Arthur had taken a snowmobile through the forest before police searched the property.
He still possessed a key to the angel monument.
"We need to reach Saint Orison before morning," Samuel said.
Arthur was silent.
"Then do not take the road."
He described an abandoned railway line running behind the cemetery.
A maintenance engine remained at a Kincaid lumber yard ten miles from the safe house.
Samuel told Ortiz they were staying at the hospital.
Catherine heard the lie.
"You are not going without me."
"You just escaped two years of captivity."
"Which is why I know exactly what your mother does when she thinks she is losing."
They left Penelope under federal protection and took Noah with Ortiz's approval only after he refused to let Catherine out of his sight.
Arthur met them at the lumber yard with a bandage around his head and blood dried on his collar.
The maintenance engine groaned to life after three attempts.
They traveled through the storm with its single yellow lamp cutting across the snow.
At Saint Orison, the cemetery gates were already open.
Fresh tire tracks crossed the untouched ground.
Daria had arrived first.
They found the angel monument shattered beside the small grave.
The hidden compartment was empty.
A figure lay facedown in the snow.
Arthur ran forward and turned him over.
It was the family attorney, Malcolm Reeve.
He was still breathing.
Samuel knelt beside him.
Reeve opened his eyes and whispered one sentence.
"Your mother has the will, and she knows the child is yours."
May you like
Then headlights appeared between the graves.
Three black vehicles surrounded them.
