Chapter 3 - My mother’s inheritance
I read the sentence until the letters blurred.
“What did my mother know?”
Ara sat opposite me as the aircraft vibrated softly around us.
“Enough to become frightened.”
My mother, Helena Sinclair, had died seven years earlier after what I had always been told was a sudden stroke.
She had been an art collector.
A philanthropist.
At least that was the version of her life I understood.
Ara showed me another document.
Sinclair Meridian Holdings.
My mother had owned forty-one percent.
“What is it?”
“A private healthcare investment company.”
I stared at her.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“That was intentional.”
Sinclair Meridian owned controlling interests in rehabilitation networks, surgical centers and medical real estate.
Including the land beneath Blackwood Memorial.
The hospital where I had nearly died while my husband refused to consent to treatment.
“Why hide this from me?”
“Your mother didn’t hide it forever. She placed your shares in a protective trust until your thirty-third birthday.”
I was thirty-two.
“My birthday is four months away.”
Ara nodded.
“Or until a triggering event occurs.”
“What event?”
“Legal separation from a Blackwood.”
I stared at her.
That was too specific.
Ara opened another section.
My marriage had apparently been anticipated before I ever met Caleb.
“Mom knew him?”
“She knew his family.”
My mother and Victoria Blackwood had once been business partners.
Twenty years earlier, Helena financed the expansion that transformed the Blackwoods’ modest surgical network into an empire.
Then the relationship collapsed.
“What happened?”
“Your mother accused them of diverting patient funds.”
“Fraud?”
“Potentially.”
“Why weren’t they prosecuted?”
“The investigation disappeared.”
My throat tightened.
“How?”
Ara looked toward the folder.
“Your mother withdrew her complaint.”
“Why?”
“Nobody knows.”
That was not true.
Someone knew.
My mother.
Possibly Victoria.
Maybe Caleb.
I turned another page.
A photograph fell onto my blanket.
My mother stood beside a younger Victoria Blackwood.
Between them was a man I recognized instantly.
Caleb’s father, Jonathan.
But my attention went to the fourth person.
Khloe’s mother.
Marianne Reed.
All four had known each other.
Long before Caleb told me Khloe was merely his fragile childhood friend.
Ara watched my reaction.
“Lucia?”
I turned the photograph over.
My mother had written a date.
October 8.
The day before the Blackwood investigation disappeared.
Beneath it were five words.
Ask Marianne what Victoria traded.
I whispered:
“Khloe’s mother is dead.”
Ara’s expression tightened.
“No.”
I looked up.
“She died when Khloe was twelve.”
“That’s what the Blackwoods told you.”
Ara opened another envelope.
Inside was a recent photograph.
Marianne Reed.
Older.
Alive.
May you like
Standing outside a private facility in Switzerland.
Only thirty kilometers from the rehabilitation center where Ara was taking me.
