Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT ALEXANDER DIED
Julian read the message again.
Cole watched his face.
“What is it?”
Julian locked the screen.
“Nothing.”
Cole’s expression changed.
“You just received a photograph.”
Julian slipped the phone into his pocket.
“My mother is alive.”
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did it say?”
Julian looked at the man he had trusted for more than twenty years.
Cole had been at his wedding.
Cole had carried Alexander’s coffin.
Cole had sat beside Julian through the night after the funeral.
Now someone claimed he had been inside the mansion when Alexander died.
“It said not to trust anyone,” Julian answered.
That was not exactly a lie.
Cole studied him.
“Did it mention me?”
Julian did not respond.
Cole lowered his voice.
“If someone is trying to divide us, silence gives them exactly what they want.”
“Were you here the night my father died?”
Cole became still.
The officers around Hale continued working.
No one else appeared to notice the question.
Cole looked toward the mansion.
“Yes.”
Julian felt something break inside him.
“You told me you were on duty across town.”
“I was.”
“Then why were you here?”
Cole exhaled.
“Your father called me.”
“When?”
“Just after midnight.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me he believed someone had poisoned him.”
Julian stared at him.
“You knew.”
“I did not know.”
“I thought he was frightened and confused.”
“He asked me to come without alerting anyone.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
“Because when I arrived, Vincent Hale was already here.”
Hale smiled from beside the police car.
Cole continued.
“Your father was unconscious.”
“Hale said Alexander had suffered a heart attack.”
“He said he had called an ambulance.”
“Did you see the whiskey?”
“No.”
“Did you enter the red room?”
“The door was locked.”
“Did you search the house?”
“I was a patrol officer, Julian.”
“Hale was your family’s attorney.”
“The doctor who arrived confirmed cardiac arrest.”
“Everything appeared legal.”
Julian stepped closer.
“Why hide it from me?”
“Because I made a mistake.”
Cole’s voice became rough.
“I left before the ambulance took him away.”
“I trusted Hale.”
“By the time I realized Alexander had called me because he feared for his life, the body had already been released to the funeral home.”
“I tried to raise questions.”
“Hale threatened my career.”
Julian looked at Hale.
“What did he have on you?”
Cole did not answer.
Julian’s voice sharpened.
“What did he have on you?”
“My younger brother.”
Julian frowned.
“Daniel?”
Cole nodded.
“He was arrested for possession.”
“The evidence was real.”
“But Hale arranged for the charges to disappear.”
“In exchange, I signed a statement saying Alexander appeared mentally unstable during our phone call.”
Julian could barely believe what he was hearing.
“You helped him bury my father’s warning.”
“I was twenty-six.”
“I had a wife.”
“A newborn son.”
“And a brother who would have gone to prison.”
“That does not excuse it.”
“No.”
Cole’s eyes filled with shame.
“It does not.”
Julian turned away.
The courtyard lights illuminated the scattered roses.
The same flowers he had planned to give Martha and Bianca.
He had entered his home expecting celebration.
Now he could not identify a single person who had told him the truth.
Cole stepped closer.
“I have spent nine years trying to make up for that night.”
“You never told me.”
“I was afraid you would never forgive me.”
“You were right.”
Cole absorbed the words without defending himself.
An officer approached.
“Detective, transport is ready.”
Cole nodded toward Hale.
“Take him downtown.”
“Do not allow him access to a phone.”
Hale looked at Julian as he was placed inside the police car.
“Ask Cole who removed the glass from your father’s whiskey bottle.”
Cole turned sharply.
Hale smiled.
“That evidence did not disappear by itself.”
The door closed.
The police car drove away.
Julian looked at Cole.
“Did you remove it?”
“No.”
“Did you see someone remove it?”
Cole hesitated.
Julian stepped closer.
“Answer me.”
“I saw Martha holding the bottle.”
Julian stared at him.
“When?”
“When I arrived.”
“She was standing in the hallway.”
“She looked terrified.”
“Hale told her to put it down.”
“She did.”
“Then what?”
“I went upstairs to check on Alexander.”
“When I came back, the bottle was gone.”
“You think my mother removed it?”
“I don’t know.”
Julian took out his phone.
He reopened the photograph.
Martha sat beside the gray-haired woman.
The interior of the vehicle was dark.
Only part of the rear window was visible.
Julian enlarged the image.
A reflection appeared in the glass.
A green road sign.
Most of the lettering was blurred.
Only three letters remained readable.
MOR.
Cole moved beside him.
“That could be Morgan Road.”
“There’s an abandoned chapel near Morgan Road.”
Julian looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“We found a missing witness there two years ago.”
“Bianca owns property in that area?”
“Not under her name.”
Cole called the department.
Julian continued studying the image.
The gray-haired woman had one hand around Martha’s shoulders.
It did not look like a kidnapping.
It looked protective.
Martha’s expression was frightened.
But she was not frightened of the woman.
She was staring at something outside the car.
Julian enlarged the photograph again.
A small silver reflection appeared near Martha’s neck.
She was wearing a necklace.
Julian recognized it.
A round antique locket.
Martha had worn it for decades.
She never removed it.
As a child, Julian had once asked what it contained.
She told him it held the only photograph of a person who had saved her life.
She had never shown him the picture.
Julian suddenly remembered something from the hospital.
When Martha warned him about the red room, she had touched her chest.
At the time, he thought she was struggling to breathe.
Maybe she had been pointing toward the locket.
Julian called the unknown number.
The call connected.
No one spoke.
“Mother?”
Silence.
“Evelyn?”
A woman inhaled sharply.
Then a voice answered.
“Julian.”
He recognized it immediately.
Martha.
“Mother, where are you?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“Are you safe?”
“For now.”
“Who is Evelyn Hart?”
Martha began crying.
“I should have told you years ago.”
“Told me what?”
“Your father made me promise.”
“About his first marriage?”
Martha was silent.
“Is Evelyn his first wife?”
“Yes.”
“Why did she take you?”
“She did not take me.”
“I called her.”
Julian stared into the darkness beyond the courtyard.
“You called a woman you supposedly have not seen in decades?”
“I have seen her.”
“How often?”
“Every year.”
Julian closed his eyes.
Another secret.
Another hidden relationship.
“Why?”
“Because she is family.”
“She is not my family.”
Martha sobbed.
“Yes, Julian.”
“She is.”
The words hit him harder than he expected.
“What does that mean?”
Martha whispered something to the woman beside her.
Then she returned to the phone.
“You need to leave the mansion.”
“I am not leaving.”
“They will come back.”
“Bianca is gone.”
“Vincent is under arrest.”
Martha’s voice became urgent.
“Vincent is not in control.”
Julian looked toward Cole.
“Who is?”
“I cannot say over the phone.”
“Mother, stop protecting people.”
“I am trying to protect you.”
“You nearly died tonight.”
“Because I waited too long.”
Julian heard movement on her end.
A car door opened.
“Where are you going?”
“To finish what your father started.”
“What did he start?”
Martha began breathing faster.
“Julian, listen carefully.”
“In my bedroom, beneath the floorboard under the window, there is a sealed envelope.”
“Inside is a birth certificate.”
“Whose birth certificate?”
Martha started to answer.
A man’s voice shouted in the background.
The line became chaotic.
Evelyn yelled.
A door slammed.
Julian heard Martha scream.
Then the phone fell.
The connection remained open.
Footsteps.
A struggle.
A man’s breathing.
Then a voice Julian knew whispered near the phone.
“You should have proposed tonight.”
Bianca.
The call ended.
Julian ran toward his car.
Cole followed.
“Where are you going?”
“Morgan Road.”
“You don’t know they’re there.”
“I know Bianca found them.”
Cole grabbed the passenger door.
“I’m coming.”
Julian stopped.
“You lied to me for nine years.”
“I know.”
“You helped Hale silence my father.”
“I know.”
“I do not trust you.”
Cole looked directly at him.
“You shouldn’t.”
“But Martha is missing.”
“Bianca has a lethal drug.”
“And whoever sent you that warning wants you to go alone.”
Julian unlocked the car.
“Get in.”
They left the mansion at high speed.
Cole contacted nearby patrol units.
No one responded from Morgan Road.
The area had weak radio coverage.
Rain began falling as they entered the northern hills.
The city lights disappeared behind them.
The road narrowed.
Trees crowded both sides.
Julian’s phone showed no signal again.
“How far?” he asked.
“Six minutes.”
Cole checked his weapon.
“The chapel has two entrances.”
“There’s a cemetery behind it.”
“Do not enter until backup arrives.”
Julian said nothing.
Cole looked at him.
“That was not a suggestion.”
“My mother does not have time.”
“You rushing in could get her killed.”
Julian tightened both hands around the steering wheel.
A vehicle appeared ahead.
Its headlights were off.
It sat sideways across the road.
Julian braked.
A black van blocked their path.
The same kind of van Cole had seen behind the mansion.
“Reverse,” Cole said.
A second vehicle appeared behind them.
Headlights flooded the rear window.
They were trapped.
Cole opened his door.
“Stay inside.”
Gunfire struck the windshield.
The glass cracked.
Julian dropped below the dashboard.
Cole fired through the open door.
A man shouted outside.
Julian reached toward the glove compartment.
Cole kept a spare weapon there.
He found it.
Another shot struck the side mirror.
Julian looked toward the woods.
A narrow path opened between the trees.
He shifted the car into drive.
“What are you doing?” Cole shouted.
Julian slammed the accelerator.
The car left the road.
Branches scraped across the windshield.
The tires slid through mud.
Cole pulled the door closed.
Behind them, armed men ran toward the trees.
“They knew we were coming,” Cole said.
“Bianca heard the phone call.”
“No.”
Cole looked at him.
“She did not hear what Martha told you before the struggle.”
“Then how?”
Julian thought of the locket.
The copied voices.
The cameras in his office and bedroom.
“They have been listening to my mother.”
The vehicle bounced over a ditch.
Julian fought the steering wheel.
Ahead, a small stone building appeared through the rain.
The abandoned chapel.
A warm light glowed through one broken window.
Julian stopped behind a line of trees.
Both men got out.
They moved quietly through the cemetery.
The chapel door stood open.
A woman was crying inside.
Julian recognized Martha’s voice.
He moved faster.
Cole caught his arm.
“Wait.”
A shadow crossed the window.
Then Bianca’s voice echoed from inside.
“You lied to me, Martha.”
“You told me the certificate was destroyed.”
Julian approached the side wall.
He looked through a broken section of glass.
Martha sat tied to a wooden chair.
Evelyn lay unconscious on the floor.
Bianca stood beside an altar.
Three armed men surrounded them.
A fourth person stood with his back to Julian.
Tall.
Gray suit.
Dark hair.
Bianca handed him Martha’s locket.
The man opened it.
A small folded paper fell into his palm.
He smiled.
“This is not the certificate.”
Martha lifted her head.
“You will never find it.”
The man crouched in front of her.
“You hid the truth for thirty-four years.”
“You watched Julian inherit a company that was never meant to be his.”
Julian’s stomach tightened.
The man stood and turned.
Julian finally saw his face.
It was Dr. Samuel Bennett.
Martha’s retired physician.
The man Bianca claimed had prescribed the pills.
The man who had treated Julian’s family for fifteen years.
Bennett looked toward Bianca.
“Bring Julian inside.”
Bianca frowned.
“He isn’t here.”
Bennett smiled.
“Yes, he is.”
Julian felt cold metal press against the back of his head.
A voice whispered behind him.
“Drop the gun.”
Cole was no longer beside him.
Julian slowly lowered the weapon.
The man behind him pushed him toward the chapel.
Julian looked back once.
Cole was on his knees between two gravestones.
His hands were raised.
Blood ran from his temple.
The chapel doors opened wider.
Bianca turned.
Her eyes met Julian’s.
For the first time that night, she looked genuinely happy.
“I knew you would come for her.”
Julian was forced inside.
Martha began struggling against the ropes.
“No!”
Bianca stepped close to Julian.
She touched his face with one hand.
“I gave you one final chance to choose me.”
Julian stared at her.
“You tried to murder my mother.”
Bianca’s smile faded.
“And you still came exactly where I needed you.”
Bennett placed a document on the altar.
A pen rested beside it.
“Sign the transfer.”
Julian looked down.
The document granted control of Rossi International to a newly created trust.
The beneficiary’s name had been hidden beneath a black cover sheet.
“Who owns the trust?”
Bennett removed the cover.
Julian read the name.
His body went numb.
The beneficiary was not Bianca.
Not Vincent Hale.
Not Evelyn Hart.
It was Martha Rossi.
Julian looked toward his mother.
She stopped struggling.
May you like
Bennett smiled.
“Now ask her why she spent thirty-four years pretending you were Alexander Rossi’s son.”
