Chapter 3 - The Name Victor Had Buried
Emma would not let Victor near her.
She crawled backward until her shoulders hit the wall.
“No!”
Victor stopped.
Marcus lowered his hands.
Eleanor stared at the child.
“You’re real.”
Emma looked at her with hatred.
“You hurt Lily.”
Eleanor flinched.
Good.
Someone needed to say it without euphemism.
Victor crouched several feet away.
“I’m Lily’s grandfather.”
“I know.”
“Why are you afraid of me?”
Emma hugged her knees.
“Because Grandma said you killed my mother.”
Silence.
Victor’s face did not move.
But Marcus knew him well enough to see the shock.
“What is your mother’s name?”
Emma whispered:
“Rebecca.”
Victor stood.
Thirty-four years earlier, Victor had known a Rebecca.
Rebecca Shaw.
His fiancée before his marriage.
Beautiful.
Brilliant.
Pregnant when she disappeared.
Victor had spent years believing she left him.
Then police found her car beside a river.
Blood inside.
No body.
She was declared dead seven years later.
Victor never told Daniel.
His son grew up believing Victor had only loved Daniel’s mother.
Emma was seven.
She could not be Rebecca’s daughter.
But perhaps granddaughter.
“Who is your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandmother?”
Emma hesitated.
“Rebecca.”
Victor stared.
The ages were impossible unless—
Rebecca was alive.
The woman he had mourned for three decades.
Emma explained that her grandmother raised her under different names.
They moved constantly.
Six months earlier, Rebecca became sick.
Before disappearing again, she told Emma to find Sarah Hale.
Why Sarah?
Because Sarah had contacted Rebecca.
Sarah discovered a Hale family account sending money to Rebecca for thirty-four years.
Victor knew nothing about it.
Someone in his family had been paying Rebecca.
The payments originated from a trust controlled by Victor’s late father.
Arthur Hale.
Victor’s understanding changed.
Rebecca may not have abandoned him.
Arthur may have forced her away.
Why?
Marcus searched old records.
Rebecca was pregnant.
Arthur considered her unsuitable for the Hale family.
Working-class.
No powerful relatives.
Arthur had arranged Victor’s eventual marriage to another wealthy family.
Victor remembered his father’s words:
She chose money over you.
He had believed them.
True evidence existed.
Rebecca received money.
But perhaps the meaning was reversed.
She may have been paid to disappear.
Or coerced.
Victor’s own history had been curated for him.
Emma finally allowed Lily into the corridor.
The girls embraced.
Lily cried.
“You came back.”
Emma whispered:
“I was hiding.”
“From Daddy?”
Emma shook her head.
“From the lady.”
Everyone looked toward Eleanor.
Emma pointed past her.
“No.”
“Which lady?”
“The one with the red shoes.”
Eleanor looked down.
Her shoes were ivory.
Sarah usually wore flats.
Helen Ward wore red heels almost every day.
The family attorney.
Victor remembered.
Helen had prepared the suspicious custody documents.
Victor called Marcus’s team.
Find her.
Then Emma handed Victor a folded note.
Sarah’s handwriting.
VICTOR—
YOU THINK REBECCA DISAPPEARED BECAUSE OF YOUR FATHER.
SHE DIDN’T.
ASK HER WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT DANIEL WAS BORN.
Victor stared.
Daniel’s birth occurred three years after Rebecca disappeared.
What could Rebecca possibly know?
Emma whispered:
“Grandma said Daniel isn’t your first child.”
Victor’s eyes lifted.
Rebecca had been pregnant when she vanished.
Of course.
He had known.
He had simply spent decades forcing himself not to think about what that meant.
A child.
His child.
Somewhere.
Victor asked:
“Did Rebecca have the baby?”
Emma nodded.
“A girl.”
Victor’s throat tightened.
“Her name?”
Emma whispered:
“Eleanor.”
No one moved.
Eleanor Price stared at the child.
Then at Victor.
Her red lips slowly parted.
“That’s impossible.”
Victor looked at the forty-two-year-old woman he had just struck away from his granddaughter.
Rebecca disappeared thirty-four years ago.
The age did not fit.
Emma saw their confusion.
“Not her.”
She pointed toward the wall.
“Another Eleanor.”
Then a speaker hidden above them crackled.
A woman’s voice filled the passage.
“Victor?”
He knew the voice.
Older.
Weaker.
But unmistakable.
Rebecca.
Victor looked upward.
“Rebecca?”
She began crying.
May you like
Then said the words that shattered everything:
“Daniel found our daughter.”
