Chapter 4 - THE WIFE WHO DIED TWICE
By sunrise, Adrien had discovered that the death certificate was real.
The signature was forged, the hospital stamp was authentic, and the document had been entered into a restricted state database eleven days after Celeste's disappearance.
The listed cause of death was complications from an emergency procedure.
The location was St. Catherine's Medical Center.
The attending physician was Dr. Samuel Reeves.
He had died four years earlier.
Adrien stood in his study while his security chief laid the documents across the desk.
“Someone wanted Celeste officially dead without making her body available for identification,” Matteo said.
“Who had access to the records?”
“Three people. The hospital administrator, a state contractor, and your brother.”
Adrien stared at the last name.
Lucian Belandi.
His younger brother had always been better at paperwork, diplomacy, and appearing harmless. While Adrien had learned to recognize a gunman by the way he walked, Lucian had learned how to make a bank transfer look like a charitable donation.
“Bring him here.”
Matteo hesitated.
“He's already on the property.”
Adrien looked up.
“What?”
“Mr. Lucian arrived twenty minutes ago. He says he wants to speak with you about Miss Hart.”
Across the hall, Evelyn sat on the nursery floor with the triplets.
She had discovered that the children liked drawing maps. Not houses or people, but rooms, corridors, staircases, and doors.
They drew the same layout repeatedly.
Three bedrooms upstairs.
A narrow corridor.
A staircase leading down.
And a locked room beneath the cellar.
Whenever Evelyn asked what was inside, the children covered the drawing with their hands.
So she stopped asking.
Instead, she gave them colored pencils and let them decide what to draw next.
The little girl drew a woman with long dark hair.
Then she drew a window.
Then she drew three circles on the other side of the glass.
Evelyn recognized the woman from the photographs.
Celeste.
“Is this your mommy?” she whispered.
The child nodded.
One of the boys pointed to the window.
The other drew a small black bird beside it.
Evelyn remembered the photograph of Celeste holding the newborn triplets. A black bird brooch had been pinned to her dress.
She looked at the girl.
“Did Mommy tell you something?”
The child touched her own throat.
Then she pressed a finger against Evelyn's lips.
A warning.
Do not speak.
A sudden noise came from the doorway.
Lucian Belandi stood there in a charcoal suit, his expression warm enough to be convincing.
“Miss Hart,” he said. “I've heard remarkable things about you.”
Evelyn stood between him and the children.
“I can't say the same about you.”
His smile didn't move.
“Children can be confused by traumatic memories. My brother has spent two years trying to help them. It would be unfortunate if a stranger encouraged them to believe things that aren't true.”
“Like their mother being dead?”
Lucian's expression flickered.
Only for an instant.
But Evelyn saw it.
“Where did you hear that?”
“Would you like to answer the question or ask another one?”
He studied her.
Then he stepped into the room.
The triplets immediately withdrew behind Evelyn.
Lucian's eyes followed them.
“See? They are frightened. They always have been.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “They're frightened of you.”
His face hardened.
“Be careful.”
“I've been careful my entire life. It hasn't stopped people from hurting me.”
Lucian looked past her toward the children.
“Your father is downstairs,” he told them. “Why don't you go find him?”
None of them moved.
Then the little girl reached for Evelyn's hand and whispered a word.
Not the word she had said in the restaurant.
A different one.
“Bird.”
Lucian went white.
Evelyn felt the child's fingers tighten.
“Bird?” she repeated softly.
The girl pointed at Lucian's lapel.
Pinned there was a small black bird.
A family emblem.
Lucian removed it immediately.
“Enough.”
The children began shaking.
Evelyn turned toward him.
“Get out.”
For the first time, Lucian's smile disappeared completely.
“You have no idea what you've done.”
He walked away.
When Adrien arrived minutes later, he found Evelyn sitting with the triplets, holding their hands.
“He frightened them,” she said.
Adrien's eyes darkened.
“Did he touch them?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not in a way you can prove.”
Adrien turned toward the door.
Evelyn caught his wrist.
“Don't.”
“He has no right to enter their room and terrify them.”
“And if you hurt him, what will the children learn? That every frightening man is allowed to decide what happens next?”
Adrien stared at her.
She released his wrist.
“You want them to speak? Then show them that a person can be powerful without being cruel.”
The words stayed with him.
That afternoon, Adrien took the triplets to the garden.
He had not done so in months. He had been afraid that the open space would make them vulnerable, that someone might approach the property, that he would lose control of a situation he could not control.
Evelyn joined them.
For an hour, nothing extraordinary happened.
The children sat beneath an oak tree. Adrien pushed a small wooden swing. Evelyn read a story about a fox who lost his way in a forest.
Then the smallest boy pointed toward the estate's eastern wing.
He whispered something so softly that Adrien almost missed it.
“Mommy.”
Adrien dropped the swing's rope.
The boy pointed again.
“Mommy. Down.”
Evelyn turned toward the eastern wing.
Beneath the windows, the ground sloped toward the old cellar entrance.
May you like
And for the first time in two years, Adrien understood that his children might not be remembering a place.
They might be remembering someone still trapped inside it.
