Chapter 4 - THE LAST NIGHT OF EVELYN PRESCOTT
-4
Chadworth climbed the stairs with the sensation that he was walking toward the end of his old life.
Edmund Carlisle waited in the service corridor.
He looked almost exactly as he had that morning at breakfast meetings for the past fifteen years: perfectly tailored gray suit, silver hair, calm posture.
Except there was blood on his left cuff.
Chadworth stopped.
“Whose blood?”
Edmund looked down.
“Sabina’s.”
Rosamund appeared behind Chadworth.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing she didn’t bring upon herself.”
Chadworth stepped forward.
“If you touched her—”
“She attacked me.”
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
Marcus arrived behind Rosamund.
Edmund’s expression changed.
“You brought him?”
Chadworth laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“Apparently everyone in my life has a secret opinion about everyone else in my life.”
Edmund glanced at the hidden door.
“You found Evelyn’s archive.”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re out of time.”
“For what?”
Edmund looked toward the main house.
“Sabina didn’t come here alone.”
Chadworth stared at him.
“Who is she working with?”
“That depends on how much you already know.”
“I know enough to understand that my fiancée has been terrorizing my daughters, using a false identity, stealing information about their trust, and possibly spying on them in their bedrooms.”
Edmund’s calm expression broke slightly.
“Bedrooms?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Rosamund folded her arms.
“Convenient.”
Edmund ignored her.
“Where are the girls?”
“Safe.”
“Are you sure?”
Chadworth moved closer.
“You have thirty seconds to tell me why you came into my home uninvited and started talking about my dead wife.”
Edmund looked at him.
“Because Evelyn called me the night she died.”
The hallway seemed to narrow.
“What did she say?”
“She asked me to meet her.”
“Where?”
“Your old downtown office.”
“She died thirty miles north of the city.”
“I know.”
“What did she want?”
Edmund hesitated.
“She had discovered that someone had been manipulating trust distributions.”
“I know that part.”
“She thought it led to your father.”
“My father had been dead almost eight years.”
“Yes.”
“Then explain.”
Edmund removed something from his jacket.
A small recorder.
Old.
Damaged.
“She gave me this.”
Chadworth stared.
“What is it?”
“Her insurance.”
Rosamund looked shocked.
“You had that all these years?”
“I didn’t know what was on it until six months ago.”
Marcus said, “Why?”
“It was encrypted.”
“With technology from four years ago?”
“With a physical access key.”
Edmund looked at Chadworth.
“The key was hidden inside the silver locket Evelyn left to Lorelai.”
Chadworth remembered the necklace.
Lorelai wore it only on special occasions.
“How did you get the key?”
“I didn’t. Someone else did.”
“Who?”
“Sabina.”
Rosamund whispered a curse.
Edmund continued.
“She copied the key without realizing what it opened. One of my investigators intercepted the copy.”
Chadworth’s patience broke.
“Play it.”
“Not here.”
“Play it now.”
Edmund pressed the button.
Static filled the corridor.
Then Evelyn’s voice.
Chadworth’s entire body went cold.
He had not heard it in years.
Not clearly.
Not unexpectedly.
“November seventeenth,” Evelyn said on the recording. “If Chadworth hears this, it means I was right to be afraid.”
Chadworth’s knees nearly weakened.
The recording continued.
“The theft from the children’s trust is not about money. The money is camouflage. Someone has been creating false beneficiary structures inside Prescott Holdings.”
Papers rustled.
“I found six names. Five are dead. The sixth is Sabrina Devereaux.”
Chadworth looked toward Rosamund.
Evelyn continued.
“I believe Sabrina is Arthur Prescott’s daughter.”
A long pause.
“But that is not the secret.”
Chadworth whispered, “What secret?”
The recording answered.
“She is not trying to prove she is his daughter. She is trying to prove Chadworth isn’t his son.”
Silence.
Edmund stopped the recording.
Chadworth stared at him.
“Keep playing.”
“There’s more.”
“Then play it.”
Edmund pressed the button.
Evelyn’s voice returned.
“Arthur changed the family trust shortly before his death. There is a dormant clause. If Chadworth’s biological relationship to Arthur is successfully challenged, control of several private holdings transfers to the eldest surviving biological child of Arthur Prescott.”
Rosamund whispered, “Sabina.”
Chadworth shook his head.
“That’s impossible.”
Edmund said nothing.
“My father would never create a clause like that.”
“He did.”
“You knew?”
“I learned after Evelyn died.”
Chadworth looked at him with disgust.
“And you stayed silent?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Everyone who betrays someone eventually says that.”
Edmund’s jaw tightened.
“Would you have believed me?”
Chadworth opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Four years earlier, immediately after losing Evelyn, he had been impossible.
Angry.
Numb.
Obsessed with work.
If Edmund had appeared with a conspiracy involving hidden children and bloodlines, Chadworth probably would have thrown him out.
That did not excuse anything.
But it made the lie understandable.
Almost.
“Did Evelyn believe my father wasn’t my biological father?”
“No.”
“Then why was she afraid?”
“Because someone had manufactured evidence.”
Edmund restarted the recording.
“I located a laboratory report claiming Chadworth’s DNA does not match Arthur’s preserved medical samples. I believe the report is fraudulent, but I cannot prove it. The lab technician who signed it died three weeks later.”
Chadworth closed his eyes.
A pattern.
Always someone dead.
Someone missing.
Someone silenced.
Evelyn continued.
“I think Sabrina has been planning this for years. But I no longer believe she is the person in charge.”
The recording crackled.
A door sounded somewhere in the background.
Evelyn whispered quickly.
“If something happens to me, do not trust the person who benefits from everyone blaming Sabrina.”
Then the recording abruptly stopped.
Chadworth opened his eyes.
“That’s it?”
Edmund nodded.
“That was the final file.”
“Who benefited?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to determine.”
Marcus spoke.
“Why show up today?”
Edmund looked at him coldly.
“Because Sabina called me thirty-eight minutes ago.”
Everyone became still.
“What did she say?” Chadworth asked.
“She said Chadworth had found the basement archive.”
“How would she know you cared?”
Edmund’s expression became grim.
“Because she believes I’m on her side.”
Rosamund laughed bitterly.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“How convincing.”
Edmund looked at Chadworth.
“For the last eighteen months, I’ve been letting her think I wanted control of Prescott Holdings.”
Chadworth’s face hardened.
“You’ve been meeting with my fiancée behind my back?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Twenty-three.”
Rosamund stared.
Marcus said, “Christ.”
Chadworth took one step forward.
“What happened when she came upstairs?”
“She demanded that I get her out of the mansion. I refused. She panicked. Then she attacked me with a letter opener.”
He lifted his cuff.
A shallow cut crossed his wrist.
“Where did she go?”
“East corridor.”
“That leads to the garage.”
“The garage doors are locked,” Marcus said.
Edmund looked at him.
“She doesn’t need the garage.”
Everyone turned.
“What are you talking about?”
Edmund looked toward the floor.
“There’s an old tunnel beneath the estate.”
Chadworth almost laughed again.
“How many hidden structures are in my house?”
“Your grandfather built it during the kidnapping scares of the 1970s. It runs from the wine cellar to a stone shed beyond the eastern wall.”
Marcus stared.
“That passage isn’t on any current security plan.”
“I know.”
“How does Sabina know?”
Edmund’s answer was simple.
“Evelyn showed her.”
Chadworth went cold.
“My wife knew Sabina?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Edmund’s eyes dropped.
“They met before you did.”
Rosamund stepped closer.
“When?”
“Six months before Evelyn died.”
Chadworth felt something break open inside him.
“Why?”
“Because Evelyn went looking for Arthur Prescott’s secret daughter.”
Edmund paused.
“And she found her.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She was going to.”
“When?”
“The night she died.”
Chadworth could no longer feel his hands.
Evelyn had not been driving aimlessly.
She had not been on the highway because of some spontaneous errand.
She had been trying to reach him.
“What happened that night?”
Edmund looked toward the distant windows.
“It was raining. Evelyn met Sabrina at a restaurant outside the city. She believed Sabrina might be another victim of Arthur’s secrecy.”
“And was she?”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“She discovered Sabrina had already been accessing the trust.”
Chadworth’s throat tightened.
“Then?”
“Evelyn called me at 9:14 p.m. She said she had proof. She was scared.”
“When did her car crash?”
“10:02.”
“Who saw her last?”
Edmund looked at Marcus.
Marcus’s face hardened.
“I followed her from the restaurant.”
Chadworth stepped toward him.
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
“Did you see the crash?”
“No.”
“Then what did you see?”
Marcus hesitated.
“A black sedan.”
“What sedan?”
“It followed her onto the highway.”
“Who was driving?”
“I couldn’t see.”
“Why wasn’t this in the police report?”
“Because I never reached the scene.”
Chadworth stared.
Marcus looked ashamed for the first time.
“I got a call telling me Gemma had been rushed to the hospital.”
Chadworth remembered.
Gemma had developed a sudden breathing problem that night.
A nanny had called emergency services.
Chadworth had been at the hospital when police arrived to tell him Evelyn was dead.
He turned slowly toward Rosamund.
“You were working that night.”
Rosamund nodded.
“Was Gemma actually sick?”
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“No.”
The answer was barely audible.
Chadworth’s face went empty.
“What happened?”
“Someone put something in her milk.”
Edmund cursed under his breath.
“Who?”
Rosamund looked terrified.
“I never knew.”
Gemma’s emergency had pulled Marcus away.
It had kept Chadworth occupied.
It had emptied the house of attention.
And Evelyn had died alone on a dark highway.
Chadworth felt the conspiracy rearrange itself inside his mind.
That night had not contained one tragedy.
It had contained several coordinated events.
Then Marcus’s radio crackled.
A guard’s voice came through.
“Mr. Vale?”
Marcus answered.
“Go.”
“We found Ms. Laurent.”
Sabina.
“Where?”
A pause.
“East grounds.”
Marcus looked at Chadworth.
The guard continued.
“She’s not alone.”
“Who is with her?”
Another pause.
Then:
May you like
“Lorelai Prescott.”
Chadworth ran.
