Chapter 14 - Anna’s Offer
Anna did not look like a woman who had spent twenty-eight years running.
She looked like someone who had finally stopped.
Michael stood behind her.
Alive.
Bruised near one cheek, otherwise fine.
Lucy rushed toward him.
He held up a hand.
“Stay back.”
Anna looked at her son.
“You still think they’re the good side?”
Michael replied:
“I don’t think there is one.”
Correct.
Anna turned toward me.
“Your mother wants to give everything to authorities.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what happens then?”
“Investigations.”
“Public records. Lawsuits. Families destroyed. People discovering their fathers weren’t their fathers. Children finding out their inheritances came from erased women.”
Carol said:
“They deserve truth.”
Anna answered:
“They deserve choice.”
That was the conflict.
Not good versus evil.
Truth versus controlled disclosure.
Anna wanted to use the archive privately.
Approach families one by one.
Force Halston to settle.
Restore money without public exposure.
Carol argued private leverage would make Anna another power broker controlling secrets.
Both were partly right.
Then Anna looked at Lucy.
“You are Jonathan Halston’s granddaughter.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because the current Halston chairman is your uncle.”
Lucy froze.
Richard Halston.
Public billionaire.
One of the most respected property executives in the country.
He had built his reputation on “family legacy.”
His half-sister Sarah had been erased from that legacy.
Lucy whispered:
“He knows?”
“Yes.”
Thomas went pale.
His employer.
The man whose company had placed him near Lucy.
Richard Halston knew exactly who she was.
“He wanted the letter.”
Anna nodded.
“And Emily’s key.”
Then Steven asked:
“Why watch our bedroom?”
Michael answered.
“I needed to know where Steven kept the pendant at night.”
I stared.
“You broke into our room?”
“Yes.”
Lucy looked disgusted.
“So you scared me for seventeen nights because you wanted jewelry?”
Michael shook his head.
“After I realized Halston had placed Thomas here, I told you to sleep between them.”
“Why?”
“Because Steven had started sleepwalking.”
Everyone turned.
Steven frowned.
“I don’t sleepwalk.”
Carol whispered:
“You do when you’re drugged.”
Silence.
Michael had noticed Steven leaving the bed at night without remembering it.
Someone had been giving him a mild sedative.
Not enough to incapacitate him completely.
Enough to make his movements confused.
Who?
Steven looked at me.
I thought about nightly tea.
Prepared by whom?
Margaret.
His mother.
Margaret began crying.
“I didn't know.”
“What did you give him?”
“Sleep drops.”
“From who?”
She looked at Anna.
Anna shook her head.
Not her.
Then Margaret whispered:
“Richard Halston’s doctor.”
Everything stopped.
Halston had been manipulating Steven’s sleep and using him unknowingly to open parts of the house.
That was why Lucy always placed herself in the middle.
If Steven rose, she woke.
If someone entered from his side, they hit her first.
Then Anna looked at Margaret.
“You brought Halston into this house?”
Margaret sobbed.
“I thought they were helping me find the records.”
Carol stared.
Twenty-eight years of secrets had finally looped back to the same institution.
Then the front door opened.
A man’s voice called:
May you like
“Margaret?”
Richard Halston had arrived.
