Chapter 5 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Ethan refused to believe Nora.
His father’s funeral had been attended by hundreds of people.
Ethan had stood beside the coffin.
He had watched it lowered into the ground.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Nora looked exhausted.
“Amelia wrote that she saw a man in the hospital corridor who looked exactly like Charles Blackwood.”
Ethan’s anger shifted into disbelief.
“My father was dead.”
“She knew that.”
“That is why she was terrified.”
Samuel leaned forward.
“Could she have been confused because of her injuries?”
“Maybe.”
Nora shook her head.
“But there’s something else.”
She reached slowly toward the pocket of her coat.
Security immediately restrained her.
“I’m not armed.”
A guard searched the pocket and found a folded photograph.
Nora had kept it hidden inside the lining.
The image was old and faded.
It showed Victor standing beside another man at a private airfield.
The second man had his back partly turned toward the camera.
But Ethan knew the posture.
He knew the profile.
Charles Blackwood.
The date printed at the bottom was two years after Charles supposedly died.
Ethan sat down.
For the first time that night, he looked genuinely shaken.
“My father staged his death?”
Nora nodded.
“Victor told me Charles had gone overseas.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan studied the photograph.
His father had been ruthless in business.
Demanding.
Cold.
But Ethan had never believed him capable of harming Amelia or a child.
His phone rang again.
This time the caller was Blackwood Holdings’ general counsel, Margaret Sloan.
“Ethan, the board vote has been moved.”
“To when?”
“Eight this morning.”
“That’s six hours earlier than scheduled.”
“Victor requested an emergency meeting.”
“He claims you suffered a medical crisis tonight.”
Ethan laughed without humor.
“He tried to create one.”
Margaret lowered her voice.
“There’s more.”
“Victor submitted documents claiming Lily is part of an extortion scheme.”
“On what basis?”
“A sworn affidavit.”
“From whom?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Dr. Malcolm Reed.”
Of course.
The same doctor who had falsified Lily’s death certificate was now prepared to call her an impostor.
Ethan looked toward Lily.
She was asleep in a chair, curled beneath a blanket.
She had saved his life.
Now Victor intended to erase hers.
“Margaret.”
“Yes?”
“Do not delay the meeting.”
“Ethan, are you sure?”
“I want Victor to believe I’m cornered.”
“What are you planning?”
Ethan stared at the photograph of his supposedly dead father.
“I’m going to let him walk into the boardroom carrying every lie he has.”
“And then?”
“Then I’m going to bury him under the truth.”
Before Margaret could answer, Samuel’s laptop chimed.
A facial-recognition search had found a match.
The man in Nora’s photograph had appeared on a security camera three days earlier.
At JFK International Airport.
He had entered the United States under a false passport.
Samuel turned the screen toward Ethan.
Charles Blackwood was alive.
May you like
And according to the airport footage, he had not arrived alone.
Amelia was walking beside him.
