Chapter 5 - THE GREENHOUSE TRAP
Ethan grabbed a metal chair and drove it through the glass door.
Cold morning air rushed inside.
He pulled Rosa through first, then helped me climb over the broken frame. The gas alarm began screaming as estate security raced toward us.
Someone had loosened the heater valve from outside and jammed the doors.
“That was not an accident,” Ethan said.
Detective Morales agreed. “Who knew you were coming here?”
“Only us,” I answered.
Rosa looked toward the house. “And whoever watches the staff corridors.”
Police searched the grounds. They found muddy footprints leading toward the garage, but the trail disappeared near a row of parked catering vans.
Eleanor returned from questioning while the search continued. She stepped from her car in the same silver gown, now covered by a black coat.
“You are destroying this family,” she told me.
“You pushed me.”
“I panicked.”
“Why?”
“Because you came in waving accusations.”
“I had not said a word before you touched me.”
Her mouth tightened.
I held up the medical bracelet. “Why did my father say you were my mother’s sister?”
For the first time, Eleanor looked truly frightened.
Victor appeared behind her. “Do not answer.”
That was answer enough.
Eleanor had been my aunt before she became my stepmother. My father married her less than a year after my mother died. I had been eight, too young to question why they shared the same childhood photographs.
“She changed her last name,” Rosa said quietly. “Your mother was Margaret Lane. Eleanor was born Eleanor Lane.”
“Why hide it?” Ethan asked.
Victor spoke for her. “Because the press would have made it ugly.”
“You married your dead sister’s husband,” I said.
Eleanor’s eyes flashed. “Your father begged me to help raise you.”
“Then why did he send me to boarding school?”
She looked away.
Detective Morales returned with another discovery. Green River Consulting had received payments from Hawthorne Medical Systems, the company my father founded. The money was listed as equipment testing expenses.
But no tests had occurred.
Ethan opened old corporate records. “These payments began after a hospital reported failures in Hawthorne ventilator units.”
I felt cold despite the morning sun.
“How many failures?”
“Seven documented,” he said. “Possibly more.”
Victor’s voice hardened. “Those claims were investigated and dismissed.”
“By your consulting company?” I asked.
He said nothing.
My father had discovered that Victor used cheap replacement parts in critical hospital equipment. Eleanor, then the company’s legal director, helped bury complaints. My mother had found the records first.
“She threatened to expose them,” Rosa whispered.
Eleanor stepped toward her. “You know nothing.”
Rosa did not move.
“I know Margaret met a reporter the night before she died.”
Detective Morales looked up. “How did she die?”
“A house fire,” I answered.
Rosa shook her head.
“No. The fire began after she was already unconscious.”
A car engine roared near the garage.
Victor’s sedan shot down the driveway.
Police moved to block it, but he crashed through the side gate and disappeared onto the road.
Eleanor watched him flee.
May you like
Then she whispered, “He has the rest of Richard’s video.”
She Came Back
