Chapter 2 - Robert’s Last Game
Thomas and Vanessa did not go home that night.
Neither did Laura.
Police separated everyone before the ambulance left the estate.
Hospital staff examined Ethan while Laura sat beside him wearing borrowed scrubs, her soaked evening dress sealed inside an evidence bag.
Ethan had swallowed water and suffered bruising, but he was awake, stable, and communicating.
Laura considered that the only miracle she was willing to believe in.
Everything else required evidence.
The video helped.
Three weeks earlier, Laura had quietly installed temporary cameras around the estate after Ethan told her Vanessa had been frightening him whenever nobody else was nearby.
Laura had not expected what happened at the pool.
She had expected insults.
Threats.
Perhaps proof that Vanessa had been tampering with Ethan's belongings.
That was bad enough.
The cameras captured far more.
Thomas's attorneys immediately claimed context was missing.
Laura's attorney, Rachel Monroe, replied that context could be discussed in court.
Thomas and Vanessa were questioned separately.
Laura refused to speak to either.
At 4:16 a.m., Ethan finally slept.
Laura sat beside his hospital bed.
His stuffed fox rested beneath his arm.
Then she remembered.
The blue room.
When Ethan woke, she did not interrogate him.
She knew better.
She asked one simple question.
“Do you want to tell me about Daddy's blue room?”
Ethan stared at the ceiling.
“It's not blue.”
Laura waited.
“Daddy called it blue because the key is blue.”
“What key?”
“Mine.”
Ethan reached instinctively toward his cardigan.
It was gone.
Evidence.
His expression changed immediately.
“My pocket.”
“What was in it?”
“The key.”
Laura called the nurse.
Then the police officer stationed outside.
Ethan's cardigan had been collected from the pool area.
Its right pocket was empty.
Laura's stomach tightened.
“Who touched his clothes?”
Police would check.
Ethan continued.
Robert had created a game shortly before his death.
He would show Ethan patterns.
Numbers.
Shapes.
Building plans.
Ethan had an extraordinary memory for spatial layouts. Robert never treated it like a party trick. He simply enjoyed sharing puzzles with his son.
One afternoon Robert gave Ethan a small blue key.
“If Mommy ever asks about the blue room, show her this.”
Laura frowned.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“You didn't ask.”
Of course.
Robert had chosen those exact words deliberately.
He knew Ethan would follow them literally.
“What does the key open?”
“A door.”
“Where?”
“Grandpa's house.”
Thomas's mansion.
Laura went cold.
“Where in Grandpa's house?”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Study. Bookcase. Seven books. Push three, one, six.”
Laura wrote nothing.
She recorded with Ethan's permission.
Seven books.
Three.
One.
Six.
“What is behind it?”
Ethan's eyes opened.
“Daddy's room.”
“What's inside?”
“Boxes.”
“What kind?”
“White ones.”
“Anything else?”
“A computer.”
Laura's heart began pounding.
Robert Hale had been Thomas's eldest son.
Brilliant.
Careful.
Chief financial officer of Hale Meridian Group, the family's private investment company.
Fourteen months earlier, Robert died after his car left an icy mountain road in Vermont.
Accident.
That was what everyone said.
Laura had believed it.
Until six months after his death, when she discovered $11 million had vanished from a family charitable foundation Robert supervised.
Thomas blamed Robert.
Vanessa agreed.
The dead could not defend themselves.
Laura had started investigating quietly.
Then Vanessa became engaged to Thomas's younger son, Michael.
Except Michael ended the engagement two months later and moved overseas.
Vanessa stayed strangely close to Thomas.
She still wore the engagement ring.
Laura had wondered why.
Now she wondered whether it had ever been about Michael.
Her phone rang.
Rachel.
“We found Ethan's cardigan.”
“And the key?”
“Missing.”
Laura closed her eyes.
“Security footage?”
“Working on it.”
“Thomas heard Ethan mention the blue room.”
“I know.”
“Then he'll want that key.”
Rachel paused.
“Laura, there's something else.”
Police had searched Vanessa's handbag after the pool incident.
Inside were two passports.
Her own.
And one belonging to Robert Hale.
Laura stopped breathing.
Robert's passport should have been destroyed after his death.
“What was Vanessa doing with it?”
“She says she found it.”
“Where?”
“Thomas's study.”
Laura stood.
Then Rachel continued.
“There's a boarding pass inside.”
“Old?”
“No.”
The ticket had been issued eight months after Robert died.
Passenger:
ROBERT HALE.
Flight:
Boston to Zurich.
Laura gripped the hospital railing.
“Someone used his passport.”
“Apparently.”
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
Laura looked at her sleeping son.
Then remembered Thomas's words.
He doesn't deserve what Robert left him.
Not left Laura.
Left Ethan.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“And Laura?”
“Yes?”
“The boarding pass wasn't the strangest thing in Vanessa's bag.”
Police had found a photograph.
Taken in Zurich.
Seven months ago.
A man walking into a private bank.
Dark hair.
Gray coat.
Face turned partly away.
Laura stared when Rachel sent it.
The photograph was blurred.
But she recognized the watch.
She had bought it for Robert on their tenth anniversary.
May you like
On the back of the photograph, someone had written four words:
HE DOESN'T REMEMBER YOU.
