Chapter 2 - The Key Clara Should Have Lost Forever
I didn't sleep that night.
Neither did Emma.
At 3:11 a.m., Harold knocked softly on my study door.
“Sir.”
“Come in.”
He entered carrying two cups of coffee.
“You should rest.”
“I'll rest when she's safe.”
Harold set one cup down.
“We searched the vehicle.”
“And?”
“No driver. No fingerprints we can use. No explosives.”
“Tracking device?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why was it there?”
“That is what we're investigating.”
I looked out the window.
The rain had stopped.
Fog covered the estate grounds.
“Tell me everything about Clara.”
Harold was silent.
“You knew her.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough to know you loved her.”
I looked at him.
Harold had worked for my father before he worked for me.
He was one of the few men alive who knew what I had been like before Blackwood Estate became a fortress.
“Did you ever see her after she disappeared?”
“No.”
“Do you believe she died?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
I turned.
“Why?”
“Because the night she supposedly died, I saw something.”
“What?”
“A woman.”
“Who?”
“Clara.”
I stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“You never asked.”
My anger rose.
“You watched me bury twelve years of my life.”
“I watched you survive them.”
That answer silenced me.
I went downstairs.
Emma was asleep on the couch in the library.
Her head rested on a pillow much too large for her.
The oversized apron was still on.
I stood there longer than necessary.
Then I saw the silver key.
It was on the table beside her.
I picked it up.
The memory returned.
A winter night.
Clara standing beside the frozen harbor.
Snow in her hair.
A silver key in her hand.
“Keep this,” she had told me.
“For what?”
“For the day I disappear.”
I had laughed.
“I'm not letting you disappear.”
She had kissed me.
“You don't control everything, Tristan.”
“I control enough.”
She had looked at me sadly.
“I hope one day you'll understand that isn't the same as being free.”
Then she threw the key into the water.
Except the key Emma carried was real.
So either Clara had never thrown it away.
Or somebody had made a second one.
I woke Emma.
She blinked.
“Hi.”
“Where did you get the key?”
She looked at her wrist.
“My mommy tied it there.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“What did she say?”
“She said not to lose it.”
“Did she say what it opens?”
Emma shook her head.
“She said you would know.”
I stared at the key.
It had a tiny engraved symbol on it.
A black rose.
My father's old symbol.
I hadn't seen it in twenty years.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“Does your mother know my family?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She said she used to work here.”
My heart stopped.
“She worked at Blackwood Estate?”
Emma nodded.
“Long time ago.”
I sat down.
Clara had never been my father's employee.
At least, I had thought she wasn't.
Then another memory surfaced.
A night in the old east wing.
My father screaming at somebody.
A woman's voice.
Clara's.
I'd been twenty-four.
I had gone looking for her.
My father told me to stay out of it.
The next morning, she was gone.
I had always assumed he'd threatened her.
Now I wondered whether there had been more.
I brought Emma to my private office.
“Do you know what your mother did here?”
“She cleaned.”
“Only cleaned?”
Emma thought.
“She said she cleaned rooms no one else could enter.”
My blood ran cold.
“Which rooms?”
“The basement.”
I stood.
Harold entered.
“Sir?”
“Open the old basement.”
His face changed.
“Sir, that's been sealed for years.”
“Open it.”
Within twenty minutes, I stood before a steel door below the estate.
The old Blackwood archive.
My father had forbidden me from entering it.
He had died eight years ago.
I had never questioned the lock.
Now I looked at it differently.
The silver key fit perfectly.
The door opened.
Dust filled the air.
Shelves lined the walls.
Old accounting books.
Photographs.
Contracts.
And boxes.
Harold walked behind me.
“You knew this existed?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you ever come down?”
“Because my father told me not to.”
Harold smiled faintly.
“You really did obey him once.”
I ignored that.
At the far end of the room stood a steel cabinet.
The same black rose was engraved on it.
I tried the key.
Click.
The door opened.
Inside was a file.
CLARA HART.
I pulled it out.
The first page contained her employment record.
Cleaning staff.
But beneath it was a second document.
Confidential.
Clara Hart had worked undercover inside Blackwood Estate.
She had been reporting on my father's illegal financial operations.
She had been an informant.
My hands tightened around the file.
There was more.
A report dated twelve years ago.
Clara discovered that Victor Blackwood had arranged a series of murders to protect his empire.
One of the targets was a young employee who had threatened to expose him.
I read the name.
Marcus Hale.
My best friend.
He had disappeared the same year Clara vanished.
I had been told Marcus fled.
He had never been found.
Then another page.
Clara Hart was scheduled to testify.
The report ended abruptly.
Status: presumed deceased.
I whispered, “No.”
Harold took the file.
“What?”
I pointed.
“Read this.”
He did.
Then he looked at me.
“Sir…”
I heard footsteps.
We turned.
Emma stood in the doorway.
She looked at the files.
Then at me.
“My mommy said not to go down here.”
“Why did you?”
“I heard you.”
She walked closer.
Then stopped in front of an old framed photograph.
Her eyes widened.
“That’s him.”
“Who?”
She pointed.
“Daddy.”
I looked at the photograph.
There were fifteen men standing outside Blackwood Estate.
One of them was a younger Victor Blackwood.
Another was Marcus Hale.
And beside Marcus stood a woman.
Clara.
But Emma wasn't pointing at them.
She was pointing at a little boy standing beside Victor.
Me.
I looked at Emma.
“That isn't your father.”
She shook her head.
“Yes.”
She pointed at the man behind me in the photograph.
A man I had never noticed before.
A man whose face was partially hidden.
“That’s Daddy.”
My blood froze.
Because I knew that man too.
May you like
His name was Daniel Carter.
And Daniel Carter had died in prison before Emma was born.
