Chapter 2 - The Clock That Stopped at 11:17
The west library had not changed since Adrian was a child.
Dark shelves.
Green marble fireplace.
Leather chairs.
Portraits of dead Ashfords watching from every wall.
And in the corner stood the grandfather clock.
It had stopped at 11:17 twelve years earlier.
The night Adrian’s father, Richard Ashford, died.
Adrian had always assumed the mechanism broke around the same time.
Now he wondered whether someone stopped it deliberately.
Lily remained safely with the housekeeper, Mrs. Bell.
Adrian entered the library with Eleanor behind him.
She looked furious.
“You are making a mistake.”
“Good.”
He opened the clock case.
Nothing.
Pendulum.
Weights.
Dust.
Then he remembered Lily’s words.
Mommy put something in Grandpa’s clock.
Not necessarily inside the main cabinet.
Adrian ran his fingers along the carved wood.
One panel shifted.
Hidden compartment.
Empty.
Eleanor exhaled.
Too quickly.
Adrian noticed.
“You expected something.”
“No.”
“Another lie.”
Then he found a torn strip of blue paper caught inside the hinge.
The envelope had been there.
Someone removed it.
“When?”
Eleanor stayed silent.
Adrian called Victoria again.
Phone off.
He checked location sharing.
Unavailable.
That was unusual.
Victoria had left Ashford Manor two days earlier, telling him she was driving to Boston to visit her sister.
No one had heard from her since.
Adrian’s concern sharpened.
Then Mrs. Bell appeared.
“Mr. Ashford?”
“Yes?”
“I think you should know something.”
Eleanor snapped:
“Grace.”
Mrs. Bell ignored her.
“Mrs. Victoria was in this room three nights ago.”
“What was she doing?”
“Arguing with your mother.”
Adrian turned.
“What about?”
Mrs. Bell hesitated.
“I heard your wife say, ‘Richard left proof.’”
Richard.
Adrian’s father.
Then Eleanor said:
“She was looking for money.”
Victoria?
Nonsense.
Adrian and Victoria were wealthy enough.
Their marriage had problems, but greed had never been one of Victoria’s weaknesses.
“What proof?”
Eleanor replied:
“There is none.”
“Then why did you come running when Lily mentioned the clock?”
Silence.
Then Adrian found something beneath the base.
A photograph.
Old.
Faded.
Richard Ashford, maybe thirty years younger.
Beside him stood Eleanor.
And another woman.
Dark-haired.
Pregnant.
Her face had been scratched out.
On the back:
Christmas 1989.
Adrian was born in 1988.
Who was she?
Eleanor took the photograph.
Too late.
Adrian had seen one other detail.
The pregnant woman wore an Ashford family brooch.
The same emerald brooch Eleanor claimed had belonged only to Ashford wives.
“Who is she?”
“No one.”
“She's wearing your brooch.”
“It wasn't mine then.”
“Whose was it?”
Eleanor looked toward Richard’s portrait.
Then:
“Your father’s first wife.”
Adrian stared.
“My father was married before you?”
“Yes.”
“You told me you were his only wife.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
May you like
Eleanor’s answer came quietly.
“Because she died in this house.”
