Chapter 4 - The Voice of a Dead Man
William Ashford didn't speak for nearly a minute.
I had watched him face my father's anger without blinking.
I'd watched armed strangers enter a church and demand that I return home.
But the moment Dr. Mercer mentioned Richard Ashford, something changed.
His face became completely expressionless.
It was the kind of expression people wear when they are afraid that showing even the smallest emotion might destroy them.
"Are you certain?" he finally asked.
Dr. Mercer nodded.
"I heard the recording once. Catherine played part of it for me."
William looked toward the stained-glass windows.
"My father died eight years ago."
"I know."
"He was investigating Victor Aldrich before he died."
Dr. Mercer's expression grew sad.
"Perhaps you never knew what he was really investigating."
I looked between them.
Richard Ashford had been one of the most feared men in New York.
His criminal organization controlled shipping routes, warehouses, gambling operations, and countless businesses whose legitimate paperwork concealed far darker activities.
William inherited that empire at twenty-eight.
People said he'd spent years trying to separate the legal companies from the criminal operations, though no one believed he could ever escape his family's reputation completely.
Now someone was suggesting his own father had participated in my mother's disappearance.
I moved toward him.
"William?"
He looked at me.
"Are you okay?"
The question seemed to surprise him.
His jaw tightened.
"I don't know."
It was the first completely unguarded thing I'd heard him say.
For a brief moment, he wasn't New York's most feared mafia boss.
He was a son trying to understand whether the father he'd buried had been involved in something unforgivable.
Dr. Mercer touched my shoulder.
"Whatever you discover, Clare, remember that you are not responsible for what these men did."
I nodded.
Then William spoke.
"We need the recording."
I thought of the swan-shaped music box.
My father had ordered the blue room destroyed.
If his men found the hidden compartment empty, they would search everything.
"We may already be too late."
William took out his phone.
"I have an investigator watching the estate's public entrances. The contractors moved several items into a storage truck at five this morning."
My stomach dropped.
"Everything?"
"Furniture. Boxes. Some personal belongings."
"The music box?"
"I don't know."
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
Then I remembered something.
"The old gardener."
William frowned.
"Who?"
"Mr. Thomas Reed. He has worked at the estate since before I was born."
"Can you trust him?"
I thought of the elderly man who taught me how to grow roses when I was seven.
The man who brought me books whenever my father refused to let me attend family gatherings.
The man who called me Little Sparrow because I spoke softly but always returned to the garden.
"I think so."
William studied my face.
"Call him."
Thomas answered on the second ring.
"Miss Clare?"
His voice sounded unusually tense.
"Mr. Reed, are you alone?"
"Yes, child. I'm in the greenhouse."
I swallowed.
"Did they empty the blue room?"
There was a pause.
Then he sighed.
"I was wondering when you'd ask."
My heart started pounding.
"Did you see a little music box? A white swan?"
Another silence.
"Miss Clare, your mother gave me instructions concerning that music box many years ago."
I nearly dropped the phone.
"You knew my mother?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
His voice broke.
"Because she asked me to keep you safe until the right time."
I closed my eyes.
Another person.
Another adult who knew something about my mother.
Another person who'd watched me grow up without saying a word.
Anger rose in my throat.
"Everyone keeps saying they were protecting me."
Thomas didn't interrupt.
"Did anyone ever consider that I deserved to know who I was?"
He exhaled shakily.
"You're right, Miss Clare."
The admission made my eyes sting.
"I'm sorry."
I looked toward William.
He waited silently.
"Do you still have the music box?" I asked.
"Yes."
My knees weakened.
"Where?"
"Somewhere your father would never think to look."
An hour later, William and I arrived at a small stone cottage on the edge of a private nursery about twelve miles from the Aldrich estate.
Thomas Reed had rented the property after his wife died.
It smelled of soil, old books, and fresh bread.
The white swan stood on his kitchen table.
I recognized it immediately.
Its wings were slightly chipped.
One blue crystal eye was missing.
I remembered finding it when I was nine.
I remembered my father screaming when I touched it.
Thomas watched me approach.
"Your mother bought that when she learned she was pregnant."
I ran my fingers over the swan's curved neck.
"What did she want me to know?"
Thomas's eyes filled.
"That you were loved."
My throat tightened.
He continued.
"And that your father wasn't always the man you know."
I looked at him.
"Did he love her?"
Thomas hesitated.
"I believe he thought he did. But Victor loved control more."
The words settled painfully inside me.
William remained near the doorway.
He was giving me space.
I turned the swan over.
There was a tiny screw beneath its base.
Thomas handed me a screwdriver.
"Your mother told me there was something hidden inside, but she never told me how to open it."
My hands trembled as I loosened the screw.
A small panel came away.
Inside was a narrow compartment lined with felt.
There was a microcassette tape wrapped in wax paper.
And beneath it, a folded note.
Clare, if you found this, you have already been braver than I hoped you would ever need to be.
Please listen with someone who will tell you the truth, even when it hurts.
Love, Mom.
I pressed the note to my chest.
Then I looked at William.
"Will you listen with me?"
He nodded.
"If that's what you want."
Thomas disappeared into the next room and returned with a small recording player.
He said Eleanor had left it with him years earlier, along with instructions that were never fully explained.
I inserted the tape.
Pressed play.
A faint hiss filled the kitchen.
Then I heard a woman's voice.
My mother's voice.
It was stronger than I'd imagined.
Calm.
Determined.
"October fourteenth. This is Eleanor Bennett. I am making this recording because Victor has threatened to take my daughter after she's born."
My eyes filled.
William stood very still.
A man's voice interrupted.
"Eleanor, turn that thing off."
My mother answered sharply.
"No."
The man swore.
Then another male voice spoke.
"Victor, we agreed she wouldn't be involved."
William went pale.
I looked at him.
He whispered:
"That's my father."
The recording continued.
Richard Ashford sounded angry.
"She found the accounts, Victor. That means the accounts are compromised."
My father answered.
"Then we change them."
"You can't change twenty million dollars in fraudulent transfers overnight."
My mother spoke again.
"That money came from hospitals, children's charities, and retirement funds."
Richard responded.
"You don't understand what you're dealing with."
"I understand that you stole it."
I felt physically sick.
My mother hadn't been imagining things.
She'd discovered financial crimes involving two powerful men.
And she'd confronted them.
Then came the part that made my blood run cold.
Victor said:
"Once the baby is born, Eleanor becomes irrelevant."
My mother inhaled sharply.
"What does that mean?"
Richard answered.
"It means you need to stop making threats, Victor."
"She'll never cooperate."
"Then we'll find another way."
The recording crackled.
Someone moved.
A chair scraped across the floor.
Then Victor spoke.
"We can have her committed. Richard knows people who can arrange it."
My mother said:
"You can't do that."
Victor laughed.
"Watch me."
I covered my mouth.
William's expression hardened.
But the recording wasn't finished.
Richard spoke again.
"No one is disappearing, Victor. I'll deal with the financial records. You keep your hands off Eleanor."
My heart jumped.
There was a difference between what Dr. Mercer had said and what we were hearing.
Richard had been involved in the financial crimes.
He might have helped conceal them.
But he had also objected to my father's threats.
Then my mother said something unexpected.
"Richard, if you truly want to stop this, help me protect Clare."
Richard was silent.
Eleanor continued.
"Catherine knows everything."
A long pause.
Then Richard whispered:
"God help us."
The tape ended.
No confession to murder.
No instruction to abduct anyone.
But enough to confirm that my mother had been threatened, that my father was involved in a financial crime, and that Richard Ashford had known.
William stood motionless.
I looked at him.
"Your father tried to stop mine."
"At least on that recording."
"You don't believe him?"
William's expression was grim.
"I believe what I heard. But I also know he was involved in the theft."
He looked away.
"My mother spent years trying to understand why Eleanor disappeared. My father told her to stop asking questions."
I thought about Catherine.
She had believed her friend was in danger.
Her own husband may have known more than he admitted.
"What happened to your parents?" I asked.
William sat across from me.
"My father died in a warehouse fire. The official investigation concluded it was an accident caused by faulty electrical wiring."
"And your mother?"
"She died two years later."
His voice changed.
"She never stopped looking for Eleanor."
I stared at the cassette.
"Do you think Richard was killed?"
William looked toward Thomas.
"I don't know anymore."
The old gardener lowered his eyes.
Then he said something that made us both turn.
"Richard Ashford came to see Eleanor the night before she disappeared."
William stood.
"What?"
Thomas swallowed.
"I saw his car."
"Did you see him?"
"Yes."
"What happened?"
"They argued near the greenhouse. Eleanor was furious."
"About what?"
"I couldn't hear everything."
Thomas's hands shook.
"But I heard her say, 'You promised you'd tell Catherine.'"
William's face tightened.
Thomas continued.
"Richard gave her an envelope."
"What kind of envelope?"
"Large. Brown. She hid it beneath her coat."
I leaned forward.
"Where did she go afterward?"
"Back inside the house."
"Did my father see her?"
"I don't know."
Thomas looked at me.
"But the next morning, Eleanor was gone."
I felt cold.
William reached for his phone.
"We need to speak to Daniel Pierce. If my mother left any sealed records, he'd know."
I looked at him.
"Do you trust him?"
"Yes."
"Completely?"
William paused.
"No one completely. But Daniel represented my mother for twenty years, and he's one of the few people who challenged my father openly."
I nodded.
Then Thomas reached beneath the table.
"There's one more thing."
He placed a small envelope in front of me.
My name was written across it.
Not in Eleanor's handwriting.
In Catherine Ashford's.
For Clare Bennett, when the truth begins.
Inside was a single page.
Clare, I hope you never have to read this.
If you do, understand that your mother's disappearance was connected to something larger than your father's greed.
The money was only the beginning.
There was a witness.
Someone who knew exactly what happened that night.
And I believe that witness is still living under Victor Aldrich's roof.
I looked up slowly.
My father.
My sisters.
The staff.
Someone in that house knew what happened.
Someone had watched me grow up.
Someone had seen me cry for a mother I thought was dead.
And someone had kept the truth.
Before I could speak, my phone vibrated.
A message from Genevieve.
Dad knows you found the tape.
Another appeared.
He's blaming me.
Then a third.
Clare, I think he's going to send me away.
I stood so quickly that my chair fell backward.
William caught it before it hit the floor.
"What's wrong?"
I showed him the messages.
His expression darkened.
"We'll contact her."
I called Genevieve.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then her phone sent one final message.
Don't come home. He's found the photograph.
I stared at the screen.
"What photograph?"
William looked over my shoulder.
And suddenly I remembered the silver locket.
The man standing beside my mother.
The face I'd thought I recognized.
I opened the locket again.
William leaned closer.
For one terrible second, he stopped breathing.
Then he whispered:
"That's not your father."
"I know."
May you like
He looked at me.
"Clare, that's my uncle."
