Chapter 3 - THE CAR BEYOND THE GATE
By midnight, Blackwood House no longer resembled a mansion hosting an engagement celebration.
It resembled a command center under siege.
Security screens filled the library.
Maps covered the long oak table.
Guests were being released one group at a time after statements were taken.
Vivienne and Augustus remained in the west drawing room under guard.
Ivy refused pain medication because it made her sleepy.
She stood beside the library table wearing a clean black shirt borrowed from one of the housekeepers.
The fabric pulled painfully against her stitches.
She did not care.
Dorian had been missing for four hours.
Every minute felt like an accusation.
Declan enlarged traffic footage on the wall display.
Dorian's sedan appeared at three intersections.
At the fourth, the camera angle changed.
The passenger seat was empty.
"Where did Hale's event manager get out?" Ronan asked.
"Blind area between Carlton and the old freight district."
"Name."
"Elias Vane."
Ronan's eyes narrowed.
"Background?"
"Former military logistics."
"For whom?"
Declan hesitated.
"Hale Strategic Consulting."
Ivy looked at him.
"That sounds less like event planning than kidnapping."
Declan did not argue.
Ronan leaned over the map.
"Search every Hale property within fifty miles."
"Already doing it."
"Warehouses."
"Yes."
"Private clinics."
"Yes."
"Boats."
"Yes."
Ivy's voice cut through them.
"And Blackwood properties."
The room went quiet.
Ronan looked at her.
"All of them," Ivy said.
"Whoever did this used your badge system and knew your gates."
"She's right," Declan said.
Ronan nodded.
"Search ours too."
Ivy watched him carefully.
She expected resistance.
He gave none.
That worried her more.
A knock sounded at the library door.
An elderly housekeeper entered carrying a small box.
Agnes Bell had worked for the Blackwood family longer than Ivy had been alive.
Her gray hair was pinned neatly behind her head.
Her hands trembled.
"Mr. Blackwood."
Ronan straightened.
"Agnes?"
She looked at Ivy.
Then at the box.
"I should have given you this years ago."
Ronan's face changed.
"What is it?"
"Your mother's."
Agnes placed the box on the table.
The brass latch was corroded.
A faded luggage tag still clung to the side.
E.B.
Eleanor Blackwood.
Ronan stared at it.
"Where did you get this?"
"Your mother gave it to me the week before she died."
Ronan's voice dropped.
"You kept something from me for nine years?"
Agnes's eyes filled.
"Your father told me that if I ever gave it to you, my grandson would disappear."
Nobody spoke.
Ronan stepped back as though she had struck him.
Agnes continued.
"After Gideon died, I thought the danger was over."
She looked at Augustus Hale's name on the security board.
"Then Mr. Hale came to see me."
"When?" Declan asked.
"Three days after the funeral."
"What did he say?"
Agnes swallowed.
"He repeated Gideon's warning word for word."
Ivy felt ice crawl along her spine.
"Why give it to us now?"
Agnes looked at her.
"Because I saw your mother once."
Ivy forgot to breathe.
"Where?"
"In this house."
The room disappeared around her.
"No."
Agnes nodded.
"Celeste came through the staff entrance many nights."
"She cleaned offices."
"That is what she told her children."
Agnes's voice softened.
"It was not what she did for Mrs. Blackwood."
Ivy gripped the table.
"What did she do?"
Agnes looked at Ronan.
"She counted."
Ronan frowned.
"Counted what?"
"Money that wasn't supposed to exist."
Agnes touched the old box.
"Your mother called Celeste her compass."
Ivy felt anger rise through her fear.
"My mother worked for Eleanor?"
"In secret."
"Doing what?"
"Tracing accounts."
Agnes looked toward the windows.
"Your father and Mr. Hale were moving cash through construction companies, charities, medical suppliers, and political foundations."
Ronan's jaw tightened.
"I knew about some of the shell companies."
Agnes shook her head.
"Not these."
She tapped the box.
"Your mother said if Gideon knew how much she had discovered, neither she nor Celeste would live through the week."
Ivy's vision blurred.
"They died one day apart."
Agnes closed her eyes.
"Yes."
Silence filled the library.
Ronan reached for the latch.
It would not open.
Declan examined it.
"Key?"
Agnes looked at Ivy.
"Your mother had it."
Ivy almost laughed.
"Then it's gone."
Agnes's gaze remained on her.
"Are you sure?"
The question followed Ivy all the way to her apartment.
Ronan insisted on going with her.
Declan sent four guards ahead.
The building on Linden Avenue was old, narrow, and clean.
Ivy had grown up there.
She had also spent years trying to leave it.
When she reached the third floor, the apartment door was already open.
Her heart stopped.
"Theo."
A guard stepped out.
"He's safe with the neighbor."
Ivy exhaled.
Then she saw the apartment.
Every drawer had been pulled out.
Couch cushions lay torn open.
Kitchen cupboards hung crooked.
The framed photograph of her mother had been thrown to the floor.
Glass covered Celeste Lancaster's smiling face.
Ivy stood in the doorway and shook.
Ronan entered behind her.
"Don't touch anything."
"This was my mother's home."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Ivy turned on him.
"You grew up in a mansion with guards."
She pointed at the overturned furniture.
"We grew up counting grocery money."
Her voice broke.
"She died, and Dorian started working nights at sixteen because Theo needed braces."
Ronan said nothing.
"And now I find out she was secretly helping your mother track criminal money."
She wiped angry tears from her face.
"What did she get for it?"
Ronan looked at the broken photograph.
"A grave."
Ivy hated him for saying it.
She hated herself because it was true.
She walked to the bedroom she had shared with her brothers as a child.
The closet had been emptied.
Shoeboxes covered the floor.
A cheap wooden jewelry case lay open.
Nothing valuable remained because there had never been anything valuable to steal.
Then Ivy remembered Theo's call.
"Dorian asked about papers."
She knelt beside the old radiator.
Ronan watched.
"What are you doing?"
"My mother hid rent money under loose floorboards."
She pressed near the wall.
One board shifted.
Ivy's pulse accelerated.
She pulled it up.
Beneath it was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay an envelope wrapped in plastic.
Ronan crouched beside her.
Ivy opened it.
There was no money.
There was a brass key.
And a folded note in her mother's handwriting.
Ivy knew the loops of every letter.
She had stared at Celeste's grocery lists for years after her death because they were the only pieces of her handwriting left.
Her hands began to shake.
She unfolded the paper.
IVY,
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN I FAILED TO KEEP THIS AWAY FROM YOU.
DO NOT TRUST GIDEON BLACKWOOD.
DO NOT TRUST AUGUSTUS HALE.
AND IF ELEANOR IS DEAD TOO, DO NOT TRUST ANYONE WHO SAYS IT WAS AN ACCIDENT.
The room went silent.
Ivy continued.
THE LEDGER IS NOT MONEY.
IT IS NAMES.
THE KEY OPENS WHAT ELEANOR COULD NOT TAKE WITH HER.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, IF RONAN EVER FINDS YOU, ASK HIM WHAT HIS FATHER MADE HIM SIGN ON HIS TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY.
Ivy stopped.
Ronan went pale.
She looked at him.
"What did you sign?"
He did not answer.
"Ronan."
His eyes were on the note.
"A loyalty agreement."
"To what?"
"My father's holding company."
"What was in it?"
"I never read the full schedule."
Ivy laughed bitterly.
"You signed something for Gideon Blackwood without reading it?"
"I was twenty-one."
"And stupid?"
"And trying to keep him from sending my younger cousin to prison for something he didn't do."
Ivy stared at him.
That answer had not been expected.
"Where is the agreement?"
"Blackwood legal archive."
"Then we go now."
Ronan remained still.
Ivy's eyes narrowed.
"What?"
"The archive is beneath the house."
"Good."
"Only three people can access it."
"You."
"Yes."
"Declan?"
"No."
Ivy waited.
Ronan's expression darkened.
"My uncle Alistair."
Ivy knew the name.
Alistair Blackwood was Gideon's younger brother.
He had smiled at Ivy twice during the engagement party.
Both times, she had felt as though a snake had noticed her.
"And the third?"
Ronan's phone rang.
He answered without looking away from her.
Declan spoke first.
"We found Elias Vane."
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Blackwood property."
Ronan's face went still.
Ivy felt the room tilt.
"Which one?"
Declan hesitated.
"Warehouse Seventeen."
Ronan swore under his breath.
"What is Warehouse Seventeen?" Ivy asked.
He ended the call.
"A property my uncle Alistair manages."
Ivy looked at the brass key in her hand.
May you like
The old note suddenly felt heavier.
"Then let's meet your uncle."
