Chapter 5 - The Woman in the Photograph
Eleanor Vale came to my apartment the next day without an entourage.
No town car.
No assistants.
No diamonds.
She wore a plain wool coat, sensible shoes, and carried a paper bag from a bakery down the street.
For a moment, I almost didn’t let her in.
Then Lucia saw her through the crack in the door.
“Is that the grandma lady?”
Eleanor smiled weakly.
“Yes, sweetheart. I suppose I am.”
Lucia looked at me for permission.
I nodded.
Eleanor stepped inside and stared around the apartment as if trying to memorize every detail. Her eyes lingered on the stack of unpaid bills near the microwave, the child-sized jacket hanging by the door, the old framed photograph of my mother and me at the beach.
She looked at the photograph for a long time.
Rose was smiling in it.
I had been ten.
We were both sunburned, and my mother had spent the day teaching me how to dance barefoot on the sand.
“She was happy there,” Eleanor said.
“She was happy sometimes,” I replied.
Eleanor nodded.
Then she placed the bakery bag on the table.
“I brought cinnamon rolls.”
Lucia’s eyes widened.
“Are they fancy?”
Eleanor smiled. “They are very fancy.”
That made Lucia laugh.
It was the first warm sound in the apartment all day.
While Lucia ate at the kitchen table, Eleanor sat across from me.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“You owe my mother one.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled, but she did not look away.
“I was told Rose had run away with Daniel. Malcolm told us she wanted no contact. He said she was ashamed. He said she had taken money from the family and disappeared.”
“And you believed him?”
“I did.”
The honesty hurt more than an excuse would have.
“I was grieving,” Eleanor continued. “I was frightened. My husband was angry. Malcolm was persuasive. And I let my fear become an excuse to do nothing.”
“You said you searched.”
“I did. But I searched quietly. Carefully. Respectably.” Her voice broke. “I searched in ways that protected the Vale name. Not in ways that would have found my daughter.”
I looked down at my hands.
My anger had lived inside me for so long that I barely knew what to do when someone admitted they deserved it.
“My mother died believing no one wanted her,” I said.
Eleanor pressed her fingers against her mouth.
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
She nodded through tears.
“You’re right. I don’t. But I will spend the rest of my life knowing I failed her.”
Lucia looked over from the table.
“Why are you crying?”
Eleanor wiped her eyes.
“Because I missed someone very much.”
Lucia considered that.
Then she walked over and held out half of her cinnamon roll.
“You can share mine.”
Eleanor stared at the small sticky piece of pastry in Lucia’s hand.
Then she took it.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
That afternoon, Adrian arrived with news.
His private investigators had located a woman named Marisol Grant in Providence, Rhode Island. She had been Rose’s closest friend during the years after she disappeared.
“She may know where your mother lived,” Adrian said. “She may know more about Malcolm.”
I wanted to go immediately.
Adrian offered a car.
Eleanor offered to come.
I refused both offers.
“This is about my mother,” I said. “I want to hear it myself.”
In the end, Lucia stayed with Mrs. Daniels, the kind older woman from the mansion kitchen who had known her for months and adored her. Adrian drove me to Providence alone.
The ride was tense at first.
Then I asked the question that had been sitting between us since the ballroom.
“Why are you engaged to Celeste?”
Adrian glanced at me.
“That’s direct.”
“I’ve had a difficult week.”
He almost smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“Celeste and I have known each other for years. Our families have business ties. She understands the public side of my life.”
“And do you love her?”
He was silent too long.
“That’s what I thought,” I said.
“You don’t know anything about us.”
“No,” I said. “But I know what it looks like when someone treats another person like a prop.”
His grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“She was wrong that night.”
“She was cruel.”
“Yes.”
“And you were going to marry her.”
His voice lowered. “I don’t know if I am anymore.”
Marisol Grant lived in a modest brick house near a church. She was in her sixties, with silver hair and watchful eyes.
When she opened the door and saw me, she dropped the mug in her hand.
It shattered on the floor.
“Rose?” she whispered.
“No,” I said softly. “I’m her daughter.”
Marisol sat us down and told us what no one else had.
Rose had never stopped loving Daniel Bennett.
After his death, she had discovered she was pregnant. Malcolm’s people followed her, threatened her, and convinced her that the Vale family had approved of the attack on Daniel.
“She was terrified,” Marisol said. “She thought they would take you if they found her.”
“Did she know who killed him?” I asked.
Marisol nodded.
“She had proof.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
Marisol looked at me.
“Rose hid it inside the one thing Malcolm would never think to search.”
“What?”
“The music.”
I didn’t understand.
Then Marisol reached for an old wooden box beneath her coffee table.
Inside was sheet music.
The Sparrow Dance.
But handwritten in the margins were numbers, letters, and symbols.
A code.
Rose had hidden evidence against Malcolm Vale inside the family song.
And suddenly, I knew why he had reacted when Lucia danced.
He had recognized the melody too.
May you like
He knew Rose’s secret was still alive.
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