Chapter 13 - ETHAN'S MOTHER
Ethan grabbed the recorder.
“What happened to my mother?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Her name was Catherine.”
“I know her name.”
“She discovered Project Cedar before Jonathan did.”
Ethan stared at her.
“She died in a boating accident.”
“No.”
Claire felt the air leave the room.
Eleanor continued.
“Catherine worked as a research accountant.”
“She found money being moved through Whitmore Health.”
“She confronted Richard.”
Ethan’s voice cracked.
“I was seven.”
“I know.”
“You told me she drowned.”
“That’s what Richard ordered everyone to say.”
Ethan stepped away as if Eleanor had struck him.
“Did you help him?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I didn’t know then.”
“When did you find out?”
“Years later.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I had Vanessa.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“You always have a reason.”
Eleanor accepted the accusation without defending herself.
Then she looked at Claire.
“Anna found Catherine’s original files.”
“That is what Richard believed she stole.”
Claire thought of the torn page in Anna’s journal.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor looked toward Claire’s black key.
“But Anna once told Jonathan that the truth was safest where no Whitmore would ever look.”
Claire remembered her childhood.
Her mother had owned almost nothing.
A tiny apartment.
A used car.
A small antique shop.
Then Claire remembered one place.
“The cemetery.”
Ethan looked at her.
“What?”
“My mother bought a family burial plot when I was sixteen.”
“But no one else in our family was buried there.”
Three hours later, Claire stood before Anna Bennett’s grave.
The headstone had been placed above an empty coffin.
Claire had cried beside it for eleven years.
Now she noticed something she had never questioned.
A small metal rose was fixed to the base.
Claire twisted it.
A compartment opened beneath the stone.
Inside was a waterproof case.
Ethan lifted it out.
Before Claire could open it, headlights appeared at the cemetery gates.
Three black SUVs entered.
May you like
Eleanor whispered.
“Richard.”
