Chapter 4 - The Sister Who Refused to Stay Dead

Adrian did not approach the cabin like a man who had arrived to attack anyone.

He came up the gravel road with both hands visible and stopped ten feet from Samuel.

“Before you decide whether to shoot me,” he said, “you should ask who told Pike about the station.”

Samuel's jaw tightened. “You did.”

“No.”

Vincent stepped onto the porch. “Then explain why your driver emptied my father's old locker and disappeared.”

Adrian looked at him. “Because Gerald Pike stopped being my driver six hours ago.”

Clara stood behind the screen door, the cassette still on the table beside her. Every instinct told her not to believe a man who had lied about a dead twin for decades.

Adrian saw her.

“You found Peter's box.”

It was not a question.

Clara opened the door. “You knew it was here?”

“I knew Peter used this place. I didn't know where he hid anything.”

“Convenient.”

“Yes.”

The answer irritated her.

Adrian's gaze moved to Samuel. “Pike called me at seven this morning. He said men were asking about the east cottage. He wanted money to disappear.”

Samuel's expression changed slightly. “What men?”

“He didn't say.”

Vincent folded his arms. “And you paid him?”

“No. I told him to come to the estate and explain himself.”

“So he ran.”

“Yes.”

“Why would your driver know anything about a twenty-six-year-old disappearance?”

Adrian looked toward the bayou.

“Because his father worked for me then.”

Clara's stomach tightened.

“Doing what?”

“Things I am not proud of.”

“That narrows nothing,” Vincent said.

Adrian's face hardened. “You think because I kept one secret, every ugly thing in this family belongs to me.”

“You were in the photograph.”

“I was.”

“You helped Maria flee.”

“I did.”

“Peter's tape says Isabella was running from one Rossy.”

Adrian's eyes snapped toward the cabin.

For the first time since arriving, he looked genuinely surprised.

Vincent noticed.

“Peter named you in his letter.”

Adrian was silent.

Clara realized Vincent had lied. Peter's letter had implied Adrian through context but had not directly named him.

The trick worked.

Adrian's shoulders lowered as if some private argument had ended.

“Then he figured it out before he died.”

Samuel took one step forward. “Figured what out?”

“That I was lying to him.”

Samuel's hand moved near his jacket.

Vincent said, “Samuel.”

The security chief stopped.

Adrian looked at Clara. “Maria asked me to help get you out of New Orleans. I agreed. I put her, Alessandra, and you in the car. I took you here. I told Peter to bring Isabella after dark.”

“You told him to bring her home,” Samuel said.

“I told Lorenzo that.”

The words rearranged the room.

Vincent stared at his uncle. “You lied to my father?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because your father loved Isabella and still would have locked every gate in the city before letting her leave with that baby.”

Clara flinched at the word that.

Adrian noticed.

“I don't mean you,” he said.

“It sounded like you did.”

He accepted that.

“Isabella was twenty-two, frightened, and furious with all of us. She had discovered something she believed would put her daughter in danger.”

“What?”

Adrian looked at Vincent.

“Money.”

Vincent's expression barely changed. “Whose?”

“Mine.”

Clara felt the ground tilt again.

Adrian continued before anyone could speak.

“I had been moving family money without Lorenzo's approval.”

Samuel laughed once, without humor. “There it is.”

“Not for myself.”

“Of course not.”

“For Alessandra.”

Silence.

Clara looked toward the photograph of the twin in the cabin.

Adrian went on. “Your father hid her as a child after an attempted kidnapping. At first it was supposed to be temporary. Then secrecy became easier than admitting what he had done. She grew up in houses owned through trusts, with staff paid off books. When Lorenzo began shutting those accounts down, I kept them alive.”

Vincent's anger became confused. “Why would he shut them down?”

“Because Alessandra wanted a life he could not control.”

Clara said, “And Isabella found the transfers.”

“Yes.”

“She thought you were stealing.”

“Yes.”

“Were you?”

“No.”

Samuel said, “You expect us to take that on faith?”

Adrian looked at him. “No. I expect you to ask Alessandra.”

Clara's pulse jumped.

Vincent went still.

“You know where she is.”

Adrian looked at the marsh.

“I know where she was three months ago.”

Samuel's voice dropped. “You told everyone she died.”

“Lorenzo told everyone. I kept the lie because by then telling the truth would have put a target on her again.”

“What target?” Clara asked.

Adrian did not answer immediately.

Then he said, “The same one Isabella saw.”

A car approached in the distance.

Samuel's hand moved again, but Adrian turned and watched a faded blue pickup come around the bend.

The driver was Evelyn.

Clara almost laughed from shock.

The old housekeeper parked badly, climbed out, and marched toward them wearing a wool coat over her house shoes.

Vincent stared. “How did you get past the gate?”

“I have worked for your family longer than you have been alive. Your gates are not as impressive as you think.”

She looked at Adrian.

“You finally told them.”

“Some of it.”

“Then tell the rest.”

Adrian's jaw tightened.

Evelyn faced Clara instead.

“Your mother called me three days before she died.”

Clara's breath caught.

Maria had died eighteen months earlier after a stroke. Sudden, ordinary, merciless.

“What did she say?”

“She asked whether Alessandra was still alive.”

Clara looked at Adrian.

Evelyn continued. “I told her I did not know. She said if anything happened to her, I was to remember one place.”

“Where?”

“Saint Brigid's.”

Adrian closed his eyes.

Vincent said, “What is Saint Brigid's?”

“A nursing home outside Lafayette,” Adrian said.

Evelyn shook her head. “Not anymore.”

They were on the road ten minutes later.

This time Clara rode with Evelyn. She needed distance from the men and their competing versions of the past.

The old housekeeper drove too fast and used her turn signal too late.

“Were you close to Maria?” Clara asked.

Evelyn kept her eyes on the highway.

“She was the bravest person I knew and the most infuriating.”

“That sounds right.”

A faint smile appeared.

“Did she know I wasn't hers?”

Evelyn looked at her then.

“She knew exactly what you were.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means biology is not the only way a woman becomes a mother.”

Clara looked out the window before Evelyn could see her eyes fill.

Saint Brigid's had once been a convent infirmary. Now it was a private residence for six elderly women, hidden behind oak trees and a brick wall.

Adrian spoke to the caretaker.

They waited in a sunroom smelling of lavender polish and coffee.

Clara heard footsteps in the hall.

A woman entered.

She was in her late sixties, slim, silver-haired, and carried herself with a careful stiffness in one hip. She had Vincent's eyes.

Not similar.

The same.

Vincent stood.

The woman stopped.

For several seconds neither spoke.

Then she looked at Clara.

Her hand rose to her mouth.

“Oh,” she whispered.

Clara's heart pounded.

The woman crossed the room with surprising speed and stopped an arm's length away.

“You look like her.”

Clara could barely speak. “Isabella?”

The woman's eyes filled.

“No.”

She touched her own chest.

“Alessandra.”

Vincent made a sound behind Clara, something between a breath and a broken laugh.

Alessandra turned toward him.

“You were twenty-four the last time I saw you.”

Vincent's face changed in a way Clara had not thought possible. Power left it. He became a boy trying to recognize someone from a dream.

“You're alive.”

“Yes.”

“My father—”

“I know what your father told you.”

Vincent looked at Adrian.

Alessandra did too.

“You kept the money coming,” she said. “But you stopped coming yourself.”

Adrian's face tightened. “It was safer.”

“For whom?”

He had no answer.

Clara stepped forward.

“I need to know about my mother.”

Alessandra looked at her again.

“Maria?”

Clara hesitated.

“Both of them.”

That made Alessandra's expression break.

She held out her hand.

Clara took it.

Alessandra's fingers were warm.

“Maria was your mother,” she said. “Never doubt that.”

Clara's throat closed.

“And Isabella?”

Alessandra looked toward the windows.

“Isabella gave birth to you.”

The room went utterly still.

Vincent sat down as if his knees had failed.

Clara had known the answer since the woods, but hearing it from Isabella's twin gave the truth weight.

She forced herself to ask the next question.

“Did she leave me?”

Alessandra gripped her hand harder.

“No.”

Clara breathed again.

“She handed you to Maria because she thought she would be back by sunrise.”

Clara's eyes burned.

“She wasn't.”

“No.”

“What happened?”

Alessandra looked past her at Samuel.

The older woman's expression changed.

“You're Peter's son.”

Samuel nodded.

Alessandra crossed the room and touched his cheek before he could react.

“Your father did not betray Isabella.”

Samuel closed his eyes.

“He died trying to save her.”

Clara turned to Adrian.

The black-stone ring on his little finger caught the afternoon light.

Alessandra saw it too.

Her face sharpened.

“Take that off.”

Adrian looked at his hand.

“What?”

“That ring.”

He removed it slowly.

Alessandra stared at the black stone.

Then she looked at Clara.

“The night Isabella disappeared, that ring had no stone.”

Adrian went pale.

Vincent stood.

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Alessandra's voice trembled, but every word was clear.

“Because Isabella tore it out of his hand before she ran.”