Chapter 7
Rafe returned with Evan Brooks’s notebook.
Celia’s mother had kept every one.
Page after page of watch repairs.
Then the entry.
ASHFORD, ALISTAIR — black-face dress watch.
Custom inner plate.
Concealed paper recess beneath back assembly.
Client requests no one informed except M.A.
Marcus Ashford.
Then one handwritten note added later:
Contents removed by M.A. after client death. Watch missing before retrieval complete.
Interesting.
“Before retrieval complete?”
Marcus looked away.
“What else was inside?”
He had lied by omission.
Again.
The photograph was not alone.
There was a second item.
A narrow strip of paper.
Three names.
Alistair.
Eleanor.
And someone written only as “C.”
“Who was C?”
Marcus hesitated.
Celia looked at the notebook.
Her eyes widened.
“My father used initials for clients.”
She turned pages.
C.
Repeated.
Then one full name years earlier.
CATHERINE VALE.
I knew it.
Everyone did.
Catherine Vale had been my mother’s closest friend.
She disappeared from Ashford life weeks after my father died.
We were told she moved overseas.
Why would her name be hidden with proof of the burned marriage contract?
Marcus sat down.
For the first time all night, he looked old.
“Because Catherine knew who entered Alistair’s study after Eleanor left.”
My pulse changed.
“You?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Who?”
Marcus looked toward Gideon.
Not him.
Then toward Vivienne.
Her face drained before he spoke.
“Her father.”
Vivienne’s father, Sebastian Cross.
Dead twelve years.
Another ghost at the table.
Marcus continued.
Catherine saw Sebastian enter Alistair’s study.
Ten minutes later, my father collapsed.
No murder proven.
No poison.
No weapon.
Just confrontation.
But Catherine heard shouting.
One phrase:
“You don’t get my son because your family wrote it down years ago.”
Then another.
Sebastian:
“You already promised him.”
The old marriage agreement.
Alistair refused.
Sebastian did not accept refusal.
My father died that night.
Maybe from stress.
Maybe from his heart.
Maybe something else.
What mattered now was what happened afterward.
Catherine tried to tell my mother.
Then disappeared.
I looked at Marcus.
“Where did she go?”
May you like
He whispered:
“I helped her.”
