Chapter 8 - GraceThe hospital corridor smelled of disinfectant and fear.
Vanessa survived.
The bullet had passed through her shoulder.
But she refused to speak.
Not to police.
Not to Mason.
Not even to Lily.
She kept repeating one sentence.
“Adrian knows.”
Mason understood.
They had to find Grace first.
Emma searched every record.
Hospital admissions.
Shelters.
Missing-person databases.
Private clinics.
Nothing.
Then she remembered the photograph.
The empty grave.
The date.
She searched the date again.
A small newspaper article appeared.
A woman had been admitted to a rehabilitation center under an unknown name.
The patient had suffered severe injuries in a fire.
The admission date matched the night of the Bellmont fire.
Emma drove there with Mason and Detective Collins.
The center was nearly abandoned.
An elderly nurse met them.
“Who are you looking for?”
Emma showed her a photograph.
“My sister.”
The nurse stared.
Then whispered:
“She was here.”
Emma nearly collapsed.
“When?”
“For three months.”
“Where did she go?”
The nurse hesitated.
“A man came for her.”
“Who?”
“He called himself her husband.”
Grace was never married.
Emma knew that.
“What did he look like?”
The nurse described Adrian.
Emma closed her eyes.
Adrian had found Grace.
But why was she still alive?
The nurse gave them a box.
“Your sister left this.”
Inside was a cassette recorder.
A handwritten letter.
And a key.
Emma played the recording.
Static.
Then Grace's voice.
Older.
Tired.
But unmistakable.
“Emma, if you're hearing this, then I'm already gone.”
Emma covered her mouth.
Grace continued.
“I found the documents. Vanessa and Adrian were stealing money through Mason's companies.”
Mason lowered his head.
“But there was something worse.”
Emma's hands shook.
“Adrian wasn't working alone.”
A pause.
Then Grace whispered:
“He had help from someone inside Mason's family.”
The recording ended.
Mason stared.
“Who?”
Emma looked at the key.
“We don't know.”
Detective Collins examined it.
A number was engraved.
27.
They returned to the mansion.
The key opened a metal cabinet hidden beneath the library stairs.
Inside was a box.
The box contained dozens of photographs.
Mason looked through them.
His face changed.
There was Adrian.
Vanessa.
Thomas.
And another man.
Mason's own father.
He whispered:
“My father.”
Emma stared.
The final photograph showed all four men together.
Taken twenty years earlier.
On the back was a handwritten sentence:
THE WHITMORE FORTUNE WAS BUILT ON THE FIRST LIE.
Mason's phone rang.
The caller ID was unknown.
He answered.
A familiar voice spoke.
“Your father knew everything.”
Mason froze.
“Who is this?”
The caller laughed.
“Ask Thomas why your father really died.”
The line went dead.
Mason turned toward Thomas.
But Thomas was no longer in the room.
The front door stood open.
His briefcase was gone.
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And inside the empty library, Emma found a single message written on the wall.
GRACE IS NEXT.
