Chapter 6 - THE MAN IN THE STUDY
Emergency lights flickered on.
Richard handed Sophie to the doctor.
“Lock this door.”
He ran downstairs with Brooks.
The shot had come from his study.
They found one security officer on the floor, conscious but injured.
“He ran that way,” the guard gasped.
A figure disappeared through the library.
Brooks pursued.
Richard followed despite her order to stop.
They reached the terrace.
A man jumped the railing.
Richard saw silver hair.
Broad shoulders.
A limp.
Something familiar about the way he moved.
“Stop!”
The man turned.
For one second, moonlight touched his face.
Richard froze.
“Dad?”
The man disappeared into the trees.
Brooks stared at Richard.
“That was your father?”
“My father is dead.”
“You’ve said that twice tonight.”
Richard looked toward the woods.
Arthur Sterling had supposedly died from a heart attack in Switzerland nine years earlier.
Richard had identified that body.
Unlike Caroline’s.
He had seen his father in the casket.
Or believed he had.
Brooks searched the study.
A safe stood open.
“What was inside?”
Richard crossed the room.
“Corporate records.”
“Which records?”
“Old ones. Before I took control.”
“Anything valuable?”
“One file.”
“What file?”
Richard’s voice became quiet.
“Project Haven.”
He had never opened it.
His father had ordered it sealed for twenty-five years.
Brooks stared at him.
“You kept a secret file for nearly a decade without reading it?”
“It belonged to my father.”
“Tonight might be a good time to stop respecting his privacy.”
Richard suddenly remembered the backup archive.
He entered a code into the computer.
Project Haven appeared.
Hundreds of files.
Medical invoices.
Private facilities.
Payments.
Names.
And one photograph.
A young Vanessa Bell standing beside Arthur Sterling.
The image was seventeen years old.
Vanessa was barely twenty.
Arthur’s arm was around her.
Underneath was a document.
Richard opened it.
BIRTH RECORD.
Female child.
Mother: Vanessa Bell.
Father:
ARTHUR STERLING.
Richard stared at the screen.
Vanessa wasn’t Sophie’s nanny by accident.
May you like
She was Richard’s half-sister.
And someone had spent years making sure he never knew.
