Chapter 7 - What Was Hidden in the Aldridge Safe
For three seconds, nobody spoke.
Then I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because grief sometimes reaches a point where reality becomes too ridiculous to accept.
“My father is dead.”
Evelyn looked miserable.
“I know.”
“No. You clearly don’t.”
“I received photographs.”
“Photographs of what?”
“A man.”
“That’s helpful.”
“Lydia.”
She lowered her voice.
“He looked exactly like Daniel would look now.”
My hands started shaking.
Cassian stepped slightly closer but didn’t touch me.
“Where are the photographs?”
“In the missing suitcase.”
Of course.
Everything I needed lived inside Evelyn’s missing suitcase.
Letters.
Records.
Photographs.
Perhaps the meaning of life.
Probably a spare pair of shoes.
I turned away.
“This is insane.”
Cassian spoke quietly.
“Your father died in a fire.”
“Yes.”
“Was his body identified?”
I froze.
My mother had told me there had been a funeral.
A closed casket.
I had been four.
I remembered black clothes.
Rain.
Someone lifting me because I cried for my father.
But I didn’t remember seeing him.
I called my mother.
She answered on the second ring.
“Lydia?”
“Mom.”
Something in my voice alerted her immediately.
“What happened?”
“Did you identify Dad’s body?”
Silence.
My stomach dropped.
“Mom?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
“Who did?”
“Samuel Hale.”
Cassian cursed softly.
My mother continued.
“The fire was severe. They told me identification had been made through dental records.”
“Did you see those records?”
“No.”
“Did anyone independent identify him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mom, could Dad be alive?”
A painful silence followed.
Then she whispered the sentence that shattered me.
“For the first year after the fire, I thought he was.”
My eyes filled.
“Why?”
“Because money appeared.”
“What money?”
“Small amounts. Cash envelopes. Fifty dollars. A hundred. Sometimes two hundred.”
“From the trust?”
“I didn’t know about the trust then.”
“Who sent them?”
“No return address.”
“Why did you think it was Dad?”
“One envelope contained a pressed daisy.”
My breath caught.
“His flower for you.”
“Yes.”
My mother began crying.
“He always brought daisies home when he apologized.”
I couldn’t speak.
Cassian gently took the phone when my hands started trembling.
“Helen, it’s Cassian.”
She said something.
“Yes.”
He listened.
“Did the envelopes stop?”
Another pause.
“When?”
His expression hardened.
He ended the call slowly.
“What?”
“The money stopped two months after Gabriel Vale died.”
The implication was immediate.
My father may have survived his warehouse fire.
Gabriel Vale may have known.
And when Gabriel died, whatever protection existed vanished.
Rebecca Sloan joined us an hour later.
She listened without interruption.
Then said what I was thinking.
“We need proof.”
Evelyn nodded.
“There may be some.”
“Where?”
“My mother’s private safe.”
I stared at her.
“You know the combination?”
“No.”
Cassian raised an eyebrow.
Evelyn added, “But Lydia does.”
I laughed.
“I absolutely do not.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What?”
“My mother uses the same six digits for everything.”
“How would I know them?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Your birthday.”
The room went silent.
I stared at her.
“My birthday?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It never made sense to me either.”
Cassian’s expression sharpened.
“Margaret used Lydia’s birthday as her safe combination?”
Evelyn nodded.
“For years.”
A cold feeling crawled across my skin.
The Aldridge mansion had once felt enormous.
That afternoon, walking back through its doors felt like entering the body of something dying.
Police controlled the property.
Charles had been detained.
Margaret remained with her attorney.
Rebecca had obtained a warrant covering financial records and evidence related to Daniel Carter.
The safe stood behind a painting in Margaret’s private sitting room.
I entered my birth date.
The lock clicked.
Nobody breathed.
Inside were jewelry boxes.
Cash.
Passports.
Three ledgers.
And a narrow wooden box.
My name was carved into the top.
LYDIA.
I stopped.
Evelyn whispered, “I’ve never seen that.”
Cassian looked at me.
“Your choice.”
I hated him a little for making me choose.
Because choice meant responsibility.
I opened it.
Inside were childhood photographs.
Mine.
Age five.
Age seven.
Age eleven.
School pictures.
A newspaper clipping from my high school graduation.
A photograph of me receiving a community college certificate.
I felt violated.
“How did she get these?”
Cassian’s face was hard.
“She was tracking you.”
At the bottom lay medical records.
My medical records.
Blood type.
Childhood vaccinations.
Hospital visits.
Everything.
Rebecca lifted a document carefully.
“This is a guardianship petition.”
“What?”
She read.
“Prepared but never filed.”
I took it.
Petitioner: Margaret Elizabeth Aldridge.
Minor child: Lydia Anne Carter.
Dated three months after my father’s supposed death.
I nearly dropped it.
“Why would Margaret try to become my guardian?”
Evelyn looked sick.
“My mother hates children.”
Even Rebecca almost smiled.
Then Cassian saw something behind the jewelry cases.
He reached inside and removed a photograph.
A man stood beside Margaret.
Older.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
The date was six months ago.
My knees weakened.
I knew him.
Not from memory.
From photographs.
Daniel Carter.
My father.
Alive.
I sat down.
Nobody spoke.
I stared at the picture until the image blurred.
“He’s alive.”
My voice sounded like someone else’s.
Rebecca examined the back.
“There’s an address.”
Different from the one in my letter.
Cassian read it.
“Upstate.”
Evelyn whispered, “Why would Mom know where he is?”
I looked at her.
“Because maybe she never stopped knowing.”
We searched the rest of the safe.
The answer came in a folder labeled D.C.
Monthly payments.
For twenty years.
Not to my mother.
To a private care facility.
Saint Augustine Residential Center.
The upstate address.
I called the number immediately.
Disconnected.
Rebecca searched databases.
The facility had closed five months earlier.
Property sold.
Records missing.
Cassian’s people located a former nurse.
She agreed to meet us at a diner near Albany.
We arrived after dark.
Her name was Nora Bell.
She was seventy.
When I showed her my father’s photograph, she started crying.
“You’re Lydia.”
I stared at her.
“You know me?”
“Your father talked about you every day.”
The world tilted.
“He’s alive?”
Nora’s expression broke my heart before she answered.
“He was.”
Was.
Not is.
I gripped the table.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
After allowing me to believe for six hours that my father might still be alive, the universe took him away again.
Except this time I was twenty-five.
Old enough to understand exactly what I had lost.
“How did he die?”
Nora looked at Cassian.
“Someone came for him.”
Cassian leaned forward.
“Who?”
“A man named Victor.”
My hands curled.
“Victor Hale?”
“I don’t know his last name.”
“What happened?”
“Daniel had suffered memory problems for years. Trauma. Medication. He barely remembered where he was some days.”
“Why was he there?”
Nora’s expression hardened.
“The Aldridge family paid to keep him there.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“They imprisoned him?”
“They called it psychiatric care.”
“For twenty-one years?”
“Yes.”
“He knew he had a daughter.”
“Always.”
Tears ran down Nora’s face.
“He asked every week whether Lydia had visited.”
My heart broke quietly.
Not like in movies.
No scream.
No collapse.
Just something inside me giving way.
Cassian’s hand rested on the table near mine.
Not touching.
Available.
I moved my fingers toward his.
He closed his hand around them.
Nora continued.
“Three months ago Daniel became clearer than he had been in years. He started writing letters.”
“The letters Evelyn had.”
“Yes.”
“He learned someone was coming.”
“Victor.”
She nodded.
“Daniel gave me one thing to hide.”
She reached inside her purse.
A flash drive.
“For Lydia.”
I took it.
“What’s on it?”
Nora shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Back in the car, Cassian opened the files on an encrypted laptop.
There was one video.
My father appeared on screen.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
I covered my mouth.
“Lydia,” he said.
“If you’re seeing this, I probably failed to leave.”
I began crying.
“But I need you to understand something.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“Margaret Aldridge kept me alive because she needed information.”
Cassian leaned closer.
“What information?”
My father answered as though he could hear him.
“The location of Gabriel Vale’s original ledger.”
Cassian went completely still.
My father continued.
“That ledger can destroy the Aldridges, the Hales…”
A pause.
“…and half the Vale organization.”
Cassian’s face changed.
Then my father said the sentence that made everyone in the car stop breathing.
“And Cassian, if Lydia is beside you, tell her the truth about what your father really did.”
I looked at Cassian.
“What truth?”
He said nothing.
My father’s recording answered.
“Gabriel Vale wasn’t trying to save me the night of the fire.”
May you like
“He started it.”
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