Chapter 6 - THE ISLAND OF SECRETS
The Coast Guard helicopter lifted before sunrise.
Alexander sat strapped beside Catherine while the Atlantic stretched dark beneath them.
Marcus occupied the opposite seat.
Nobody spoke much.
Every minute mattered.
Bennett Island was eight miles off the Maine coast.
Forty-three acres.
One main house.
An old boathouse.
No permanent residents.
Alexander remembered summer weekends there as a child.
His mother reading on the veranda.
His father taking business calls from a room children were forbidden to enter.
He had once thought the island peaceful.
Now he wondered how many secrets had been stored there.
The helicopter could not approach unnoticed.
Police arranged a boat insertion from the western shore.
At 6:17 a.m., Alexander stepped onto the rocks.
Catherine followed.
“You should stay with the officers.”
“So should you.”
He almost smiled.
“There’s the woman I married.”
Catherine’s expression softened briefly.
“You still remember her?”
“Every day.”
They moved through the trees.
Smoke appeared above the roof.
Alexander’s heart stopped.
“No.”
He ran.
Officers shouted after him.
The main house was already burning along the eastern side.
A man ran from the rear entrance.
Police tackled him.
A second vehicle sped toward the dock.
Marcus and two officers intercepted it.
Alexander screamed Lily’s name.
Nothing.
Catherine ran toward the house.
He caught her.
“Catherine!”
“She’s inside!”
“We don’t know that!”
“LILY!”
Then a small face appeared at an upstairs window.
“DAD!”
Alexander’s blood froze.
Lily struck the glass.
Smoke filled the room behind her.
“I’m here!” Alexander shouted.
The staircase inside had already caught fire.
Fire crews were minutes away.
Alexander knew the house.
There was another entrance.
“Boathouse tunnel.”
Marcus looked at him.
“What?”
“My grandfather built a service tunnel during Prohibition.”
They ran toward the old boathouse.
Alexander kicked through the rotting door.
Under a pile of fishing equipment, he found a trapdoor.
It opened.
A narrow concrete tunnel led uphill.
Catherine followed despite everyone ordering her back.
They emerged beneath the pantry.
Smoke burned Alexander’s lungs.
Catherine pulled her shirt over her mouth.
“Lily!”
A scream answered from upstairs.
Alexander climbed the rear servants’ staircase.
A burning beam collapsed behind them.
Catherine screamed his name.
“I’m okay!”
They reached the upper hall.
Lily was locked inside the nursery.
Alexander slammed his shoulder against the door.
Once.
Twice.
Nothing.
Catherine grabbed an iron fireplace tool.
Together they broke the lock.
Lily ran into them.
“Mom!”
Catherine stopped.
Lily had never called her that before.
Catherine dropped to her knees.
“My baby.”
There was no time for more.
Smoke thickened.
Alexander wrapped Lily in a blanket.
They turned back.
The hallway ceiling cracked.
“We can’t use the stairs,” Catherine shouted.
Alexander looked toward the balcony.
Second floor.
Twenty feet to the lawn.
Too far.
Then he remembered.
“Roof over the kitchen.”
They climbed through a bedroom window onto a sloped section of roof.
Police had arrived below.
Fire crews dragged ladders forward.
Lily clung to Alexander.
“Don’t drop me.”
His heart broke.
“Never.”
Catherine climbed down first.
Then Lily.
Alexander followed as flames burst through the upper windows.
The moment his feet reached the ladder, the nursery exploded behind them.
They made it down.
Catherine collapsed around Lily.
Alexander knelt beside them.
For several minutes, the three simply held each other.
Then Lily looked at Catherine.
“You’re really my mom?”
Catherine cried.
“Yes.”
“Ruth said you loved me.”
“I have loved you every second you existed.”
Lily touched Catherine’s face.
“I thought you forgot me.”
“Never.”
Alexander looked away, unable to contain his tears.
Later, police discovered documents inside a fireproof basement vault.
Hundreds of boxes.
Patient records.
Bank transfers.
Correspondence.
Edmund Bennett had stored evidence on the island because he trusted no one enough to destroy it.
The records confirmed everything.
Illegal medical trials.
Bribed physicians.
Fake patient consent forms.
Hidden settlements.
Catherine’s abduction.
Lily’s falsified death.
Payments to Greenhaven.
Payments to Dr. Cross.
Even Ruth Mercer’s death.
Marcus approached Alexander on the lawn.
“You need to see this.”
Alexander opened a folder.
A payment had been issued three days before Ruth died.
Recipient: Victor Shaw.
Purpose coded as “security consultation.”
Shaw was the same man police had captured fleeing the island.
Marcus spoke quietly.
“He’s talking.”
“Did he kill Ruth?”
“He says Edmund ordered him to frighten her. Claims she fell during the confrontation.”
Alexander closed his eyes.
Another life destroyed.
“Will it be enough?”
“For murder charges? Prosecutors will decide.”
“And everything else?”
Marcus looked toward the burning house.
“Your father is finished.”
Alexander felt no triumph.
Only exhaustion.
Back in New York, Edmund Bennett was arrested before noon.
Television networks carried footage of him leaving federal court in handcuffs.
Bennett Enterprises stock fell nineteen percent.
Board members demanded Alexander resign.
Banks froze lines of credit.
Reporters surrounded company headquarters.
The empire began collapsing exactly as Edmund had predicted.
Alexander watched the news from his penthouse.
Catherine entered quietly.
“Do you regret it?”
He looked at her.
“My company may not survive.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Alexander looked toward the living room.
Thomas and Lily were sleeping on opposite ends of the couch.
Thomas’s hand rested on the blanket between them.
“No.”
Catherine sat beside him.
“Neither do I.”
Silence stretched.
“You could take the children somewhere quiet,” Alexander said.
Catherine looked at him.
“Without you?”
“If the company becomes ugly—”
“Alexander.”
He stopped.
“For seven years, other people decided where I lived.”
Her eyes held his.
“I would like to make my own decisions now.”
He nodded.
“What do you choose?”
Catherine looked toward their children.
“First, I choose therapy.”
Alexander laughed softly.
“Reasonable.”
“Then I choose breakfast with Thomas.”
“Good.”
“Then I choose learning what Lily likes besides running away.”
From the couch, Lily sleepily muttered:
“Strawberry ice cream.”
They both looked over.
Her eyes remained closed.
Catherine laughed through tears.
“Apparently strawberry ice cream.”
Alexander smiled.
“And after that?”
Catherine looked back at him.
“I choose to see whether there is anything left of us.”
Alexander’s breath caught.
“You don’t owe me that.”
“I know.”
She touched his hand.
“That’s why it matters.”
Before he could answer, his phone rang.
Chairman of Bennett Enterprises.
Alexander answered.
“Hello.”
“Alex, the board voted.”
Alexander braced.
“On what?”
“Your removal.”
Catherine squeezed his hand.
Alexander closed his eyes.
“What was the result?”
The chairman hesitated.
Then said:
“Eleven to one.”
Alexander exhaled.
“I understand.”
“No,” the man said. “You don’t.”
Alexander frowned.
“The board voted eleven to one to keep you.”
Alexander stared ahead.
“Why?”
“Because you exposed your own father when hiding it would have protected you.”
The chairman paused.
May you like
“That’s the first reason anyone has had in years to trust a Bennett.”
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