Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Eleanor Bennett lived under the name Nora Bell.
Her house stood outside Madison behind a line of bare oak trees.
Adrian stared through the van window.
“I watched them lower her coffin.”
I didn't know what to say.
Some wounds are too strange for comfort.
We rang the bell.
A woman opened the door.
She was sixty-eight.
Thin.
Dark hair streaked silver.
Adrian stopped breathing.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Adrian.”
He didn't answer.
She reached toward him.
He reversed his wheelchair.
“No.”
“Please.”
“You're dead.”
“I know.”
“You're dead.”
His voice cracked on the second repetition.
Eleanor began crying.
I had never seen Adrian look helpless until that moment.
Not in the wheelchair.
Not during bathing.
Not when he needed someone to dress him.
This was helplessness.
“Why?” he asked.
Eleanor looked at me.
“You must be Claire.”
“Everyone seems to know me except me.”
Pain crossed her face.
“Come inside.”
We sat in her living room.
Adrian refused coffee.
Refused water.
Refused to look at her.
Eleanor finally spoke.
“Thomas discovered Daniel had copied financial records proving he'd stolen millions from Bennett Logistics.”
“My father?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't Daniel go to police?”
“He intended to. Thomas threatened you and your mother.”
“And you?”
“He threatened Adrian.”
Adrian finally looked at her.
“So you faked your death?”
“Years later. When Thomas realized I still had evidence.”
“What happened at Blackwater?”
Eleanor's hands shook.
“Thomas came during the storm. Daniel tried to get you children out.”
“Children?” Adrian said.
“You and Claire.”
A memory struck me.
Running down a hallway.
Adrian beside me.
Our hands locked together.
“Claire knows,” Eleanor whispered.
“I don't.”
“You've forgotten.”
“I was twelve.”
“You were terrified.”
Adrian touched his necklace.
“What does this have to do with Daniel?”
Eleanor stared at the pendant.
“That belonged to him.”
“I know.”
“He gave it to you because you wouldn't stop crying.”
Adrian frowned.
Then his expression shifted.
A memory.
“I remember a man carrying me.”
“Yes.”
“Through rain.”
“Yes.”
“He called me…”
Adrian stopped.
Eleanor covered her mouth.
“What?”
I leaned closer.
“What did he call you?”
Adrian looked at me.
“Moon.”
My heart pounded.
Because I remembered it too.
My father kneeling beside a frightened boy.
“Come on, Moon. Stay with me.”
The birthmark.
That was why.
Eleanor began crying harder.
“Daniel saved your life that night.”
“From Thomas?”
“Yes.”
She told us the rest.
Thomas had tried to force Eleanor to surrender company control.
Daniel intervened.
During the struggle, a lamp shattered and started a fire.
My mother grabbed me.
Daniel carried Adrian through smoke.
Thomas escaped.
Daniel wanted to expose him immediately.
But Thomas had police officers and company attorneys on his payroll.
So Daniel vanished.
My mother agreed to tell me he'd abandoned us.
Later she told me he'd died.
The lie protected me.
“But why did he stay away after Thomas lost influence?” I asked.
Eleanor looked down.
“Because Thomas never lost influence.”
Adrian's accident flashed into my mind.
“What about Adrian's crash?”
Eleanor went silent.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
“Your brakes didn't fail.”
His face changed.
“What did you say?”
“Daniel discovered Thomas had arranged it.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“Why would my uncle want me dead?”
“Because you were about to take full control of Bennett Logistics.”
Adrian stared at her.
“He visited me in the hospital every day.”
“I know.”
“He paid for specialists.”
“I know.”
“He sat beside me when doctors told me I might never walk again.”
Eleanor's voice broke.
“That was Thomas.”
Adrian turned away.
I saw his hand shaking.
Without thinking, I covered it with mine.
He didn't pull away.
“Where's the evidence?” I asked.
Eleanor looked toward the window.
“Daniel hid it.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“Then how do we prove any of this?”
She looked at Adrian's necklace.
“Daniel said the key would always stay with the moon.”
We all stared at the pendant.
Adrian removed it.
I examined the cracked edge.
It wasn't a crack.
It was a seam.
I pressed my thumbnail against it.
The pendant opened.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
Nobody spoke.
Adrian stared at it.
“What's it for?”
Eleanor whispered, “Daniel's locker.”
“Where?”
“Union Station.”
We drove back to Chicago that night.
Locker 317 was in an old storage facility adjacent to the station.
The key worked.
Inside sat a metal box.
Financial records.
Photographs.
A flash drive.
And a handwritten notebook.
Daniel's notebook.
The final page had been written six years earlier.
If anything happens to me, Thomas found me.
Below that was another sentence.
If Claire ever finds this, tell her I watched from a distance because loving her openly would have put a target on her back.
My eyes blurred.
Adrian touched my shoulder.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Claire…”
“What?”
“Your neighbor called the estate.”
My blood went cold.
“What happened?”
“Someone went to your apartment.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Brandon and Emma?”
“They're safe.”
My knees weakened.
“But whoever broke in left something on your wall.”
“What?”
Adrian swallowed.
May you like
“A crescent moon.”
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