Chapter 9
Sarah’s trail was inside Ellen’s journals.
Not because Ellen knew Sarah.
Because Sarah had annotated them years later.
Small notes in the margins.
Dates.
Names.
Questions.
Sarah had reconstructed Thomas’s old network by following the counterfeit rings.
Six originals.
Six men.
Three dead.
Two retired.
One still active.
The final initials were C.V.
Claudia Voss before she became Bellacorte.
Mark stared at the page.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“She was fifteen.”
“She carried messages.”
“That doesn’t mean she killed anyone.”
“No.”
I agreed.
That distinction mattered.
Claudia had been used young.
That did not erase what she chose later.
Sarah’s notes showed Claudia reconnected with one surviving Thomas loyalist after marrying Mark. A man named Vincent Hale.
He had served as Sarah’s private driver during her final year.
My stomach tightened.
Mark saw it.
“You think—”
“I think we ask.”
We returned to the lodge by afternoon.
Claudia was waiting in the library.
No jewelry now.
No composure.
Mark stood across from her.
“Vincent Hale.”
She closed her eyes.
“Sarah found him.”
Claudia nodded.
“What did he do?”
“She confronted him.”
“Then?”
“He panicked.”
I stayed quiet.
Mark did not.
“What happened to my wife?”
Claudia’s lips trembled.
“Vincent was supposed to scare her.”
There it was.
Always scare.
Never kill.
Never hurt.
Just frighten.
Just teach.
Just enough cruelty to make the next choice easier.
“How?”
Claudia whispered:
“He drove her to the old quarry road and told her to stop asking about Thomas.”
Mark’s breathing changed.
“She refused.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Sarah tried to leave the car.”
I already knew where this was going.
Vincent grabbed her.
She fell.
Hit her head on the stone barrier.
Alive afterward.
Like Ellen.
Again.
“What did you do?” I asked.
Claudia started crying.
“I called Thomas’s old people.”
“Thomas was dead.”
“I didn’t know who else to call.”
“That is not an answer.”
Her voice broke.
“I called Uncle Peter.”
Mark froze.
Peter Bellacorte.
My cousin.
Still alive.
Still invited to every Christmas.
May you like
Still sitting at my birthday table tonight before all of this exploded.
And apparently he had helped bury Sarah’s death.
