Victoria placed a box in front of her.
"These are everything we recovered from your mother's apartment."
Lucy opened it.
Inside were photographs.
A scarf.
A wedding ring.
Old receipts.
A child's drawing.
A small wooden music box.
Lucy touched it.
"Mom used to play this."
Victoria opened the lid.
A soft melody began.
Lucy smiled.
"I remember."
Victoria watched her.
"What?"
"I remember sitting beside Mom while she cleaned."
"What did she clean?"
"Everything."
Lucy laughed.
"She hated dust."
Victoria smiled.
"That sounds like her."
Lucy continued searching.
Then she stopped.
"There."
She pulled out a small envelope.
It was sealed.
On the front was written:
For Victoria, if the first letter reaches her.
Victoria's blood ran cold.
"Open it."
Lucy handed it to her.
Victoria broke the seal.
Inside was a photograph.
A man stood beside Anna.
Victoria recognized him.
She had never met him.
But she knew the face.
Her father.
Standing beside another man.
A younger Walter Briggs.
And between them was a third person.
A woman.
Victoria stared.
"Who is she?"
Lucy looked at the photograph.
"I don't know."
Victoria turned it over.
On the back was written:
She knows where the original agreement is.
Nothing else.
No name.
No explanation.
Lucy looked at Victoria.
"What agreement?"
Victoria's mind raced.
The family trust.
The property.
Anna's inheritance.
The false transfer.
All of it had been based on documents.
But what if the documents Briggs had destroyed were not the original ones?
What if the real agreement still existed?
"What if my father never actually owned Hale House?"
Lucy asked.
"Then who did?"
Victoria looked at the photograph.
"Anna."
"No."
"Not Anna alone."
Victoria remembered something her mother had once said.
The Hale family did not build this house.
They inherited it.
For generations, everyone had assumed the property belonged to the Hale family.
But inheritance records were complicated.
There had always been another surname.
Whitmore.
Victoria suddenly remembered.
Her grandmother's maiden name.
Evelyn Whitmore.
She had never understood why the name appeared in old legal documents.
Now she did.
"Lucy."
"What?"
"My mother wasn't a Hale."
Lucy frowned.
"She was born Evelyn Whitmore."
"Yes."
"And my father?"
"Richard Hale."
Victoria stared at the photograph.
"The property may have belonged to my mother's family before my father married her."
Lucy leaned forward.
"So Anna's rights came through your mother."
"Exactly."
"And Briggs needed Anna to disappear."
Victoria nodded.
"But there's more."
"What?"
"If the original agreement exists, it may prove something else."
Lucy waited.
Victoria whispered,
"My father may never have had the authority to sell the property."
Silence filled the room.
Then Lucy smiled.
"So the entire Hale empire may have been built on stolen property."
Victoria looked at her.
"Don't say that yet."
"Why?"
"Because we don't know."
"But we can find out."
Victoria smiled.
"Yes."
They spent the next six hours searching.
Nothing.
No agreement.
No original trust deed.
No reference to the woman in the photograph.
At midnight, Lucy closed the final folder.
"We're missing something."
Victoria nodded.
"The photograph."
Lucy looked at it.
"The woman."
"Yes."
"Could she be alive?"
Victoria looked at the date.
The photograph had been taken thirty years earlier.
"She could."
"Then we find her."
Victoria nodded.
"Tomorrow."
But before they could leave, they heard a noise outside.
A car door.
Victoria looked toward the window.
The security lights came on.
A black sedan was parked beyond the gate.
Lucy stood.
"Who is that?"
Victoria didn't know.
Then the car began moving.
It stopped at the front entrance.
The driver got out.
An elderly woman stepped onto the stone path.
She held a walking cane.
She looked directly at the house.
Then she raised her face toward the window.
Victoria froze.
The woman was staring at her.
Even from a distance, Victoria recognized her.
She had seen that face once before.
In the photograph.
"The woman."
Lucy whispered,
"Who is she?"
Victoria's voice was barely audible.
"I think that's my mother's sister."
The woman introduced herself as Eleanor Whitmore.
She was eighty-two.
She had lived most of her life in Boston.
She had never married.
She had never returned to Charleston.
Until that night.
Victoria brought her into the library.
Eleanor looked around.
"I remember this room."
Victoria stared.
"You've been here?"
"When I was nineteen."
"My mother never mentioned you."
"She wasn't allowed to."
Victoria's jaw tightened.
"Who stopped her?"
Eleanor looked at her.
"Your grandfather."
Victoria sat down.
"Why?"
"Because I knew the truth."
Lucy sat beside her.
"What truth?"
Eleanor looked at the locket.
Her expression changed.
"You're wearing it."
Victoria touched the pendant.
"Anna gave the other half to Lucy."
Eleanor nodded.
"Then she kept her promise."
"What promise?"
Eleanor reached into her coat.
She pulled out a small notebook.
Its cover was cracked.
She placed it on the table.
"Your mother wrote this."
Victoria stared.
"Where did you get it?"
"Anna sent it to me before she died."
"You knew Anna?"
"Of course."
Eleanor smiled sadly.
"She was my niece."
Victoria's eyes filled.
"You knew she was alive."
"Yes."
"All those years?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Eleanor looked down.
"Because I was afraid."
Victoria stood.
"Everyone was afraid."
Her voice cracked.
"My mother was afraid. Anna was afraid. Edward was afraid. You were afraid."
She looked at Eleanor.
"And I was the only person who was never given a choice."
Eleanor lowered her head.
"You're right."
Victoria's anger rose.
"You could have saved us."
"I tried."
"When?"
"Many times."
"Then why didn't you?"
Eleanor's eyes filled with tears.
"Because your father threatened to kill Anna."
Silence.
Victoria stopped breathing.
"He threatened her?"
"Yes."
"Did he ever hurt her?"
Eleanor shook her head.
"He didn't have to."
"What does that mean?"
"He knew where she lived."
"He knew about Lucy?"
"Yes."
Victoria closed her eyes.
The entire story changed again.
Anna hadn't stayed away simply because she was afraid.