Chapter 2 - THE CALL FROM THE WRECK
Claire stared at Victoria, unable to make sense of what she had just heard.
Her father had survived the crash.
For twenty-three years, she had imagined him dying instantly on a rain-soaked road, never having the chance to say goodbye.
Now Victoria was telling her that he had been alive long enough to make a telephone call.
“How long?” Claire whispered.
Victoria lowered her eyes.
“How long was my father alive after the crash?”
“I don't know.”
“You answered his call.”
“Yes.”
“Then what did he say?”
Victoria pressed a trembling hand against her chest.
“He was frightened. He kept asking me to send help.”
Claire's stomach twisted.
“And did you?”
Victoria began sobbing.
Armand spoke before she could answer.
“This has gone far enough.”
Claire turned toward him.
“Did you send help?”
Armand's expression hardened.
“I will not participate in this interrogation.”
“An innocent man begged your wife to save his life.”
“You're making allegations based on confused memories.”
Victoria suddenly raised her voice.
“My memories aren't confused!”
The outburst startled everyone.
Victoria stood unsteadily, gripping the back of her chair.
“Julien called at twelve seventeen. I remember because I looked at the clock. He said the car was down an embankment. He said Laurent had left him there.”
Claire felt sick.
“Left him there?”
Victoria nodded.
“He told me he couldn't move his legs. He was afraid the car would catch fire.”
Laurent looked toward the floor.
Claire stepped closer.
“What did you tell him?”
Victoria's answer was barely audible.
“I told him help was coming.”
“Was it?”
Victoria couldn't answer.
Claire looked toward Armand.
“What did you do?”
Armand remained silent.
And in that silence, Claire began to understand.
The official accident report had said emergency services reached the wreckage at 2:06 a.m.
Almost two hours after Julien's call.
Two hours during which he might have been saved.
Claire felt tears sliding down her cheeks.
“My father waited for someone to rescue him.”
Victoria nodded.
“He believed I would help.”
“But you didn't.”
Victoria lowered her head.
“No.”
Claire stepped backward.
The room seemed to tilt.
She had dreamed of confronting the Beaumonts for years. She had imagined anger, denial, perhaps even a confession.
But nothing had prepared her for the knowledge that her father had spent his final moments waiting for help that never came.
Eleanor moved beside Claire.
“Come with me. You need to get out of here.”
Claire shook her head.
“I need the telephone records.”
Armand gave a cold laugh.
“From twenty-three years ago?”
“Someone may have kept them.”
“Don't waste your life chasing ghosts, Miss Martin.”
Claire looked directly at him.
“My mother spent her life chasing the truth. You made sure she died without finding it. I'm not stopping.”
She walked toward the entrance.
Eleanor followed.
Outside, the night air was cold and damp. Rain glimmered on the stone driveway beneath the estate's lamps.
Claire reached her old sedan and leaned against the door, struggling to breathe.
Eleanor stood nearby without speaking.
After a moment, she said, “I believe you.”
Claire looked up.
“You barely know me.”
“I know my family.”
Eleanor glanced toward the mansion.
“Grandfather controls everything. People who challenge him disappear from the company, lose contracts, or suddenly decide to leave town.”
Claire wiped her face.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because my mother tried to leave this family when I was twelve.”
Claire waited.
“She found something in the corporate accounts. After that, my father threatened to take me away from her.”
“Did she leave?”
“Yes. She moved to Boston and never returned.”
Claire studied Eleanor.
“Why did you come back?”
“My grandmother asked me to. She said there was something she needed to confess before she died.”
A chill passed through Claire.
“Did she tell you what?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Not yet.”
They exchanged numbers.
Then Claire drove away.
She didn't go home immediately.
Instead, she parked outside the small cemetery where her parents were buried.
Her mother's grave stood beside her father's beneath an old maple tree.
Claire knelt beside the headstone.
“Mom, he was alive.”
The words broke something inside her.
She had been twelve when her mother first showed her the newspaper article about the accident.
The headline had described Julien as a reckless employee whose negligence killed a passenger.
But the article never explained why the supposed driver had been found in the passenger seat.
Her mother had circled that detail in red ink.
For years, she carried the clipping everywhere.
Claire touched her father's name.
“I found them, Dad. The people who did this.”
Her phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then a message appeared.
If you want to know why the ambulance was delayed, go to your mother's old storage unit. Locker 19. The key is behind her photograph.
Claire stared at the screen.
Her mother had rented a storage unit years earlier to keep boxes of documents about Julien's death.
After her funeral, Claire had taken some family photographs and left the rest untouched.
She had never noticed a key.
Another message arrived.
Do not tell the police yet. One of the men who helped cover up the accident is still wearing a badge.
Claire's pulse accelerated.
“Who is this?” she typed.
The reply came immediately.
Someone who should have spoken twenty-three years ago.
Claire called the number.
Disconnected.
She drove home through the rain.
Her house was small, with faded blue shutters and a narrow porch. She had inherited it from her mother, along with unpaid medical bills and boxes of unanswered letters.
Inside, she went straight to the living room.
Her mother's favorite photograph sat on the mantel.
It showed Claire at eight years old, sitting between her parents at a county fair.
She removed the picture from its frame.
Behind the cardboard backing was a small brass key.
Claire stared at it.
Her mother had hidden it in plain sight.
At 11:30 p.m., Claire reached the storage facility on the edge of town.
Locker 19 stood at the end of a dim hallway.
The brass key turned with difficulty.
Inside were three shelves of cardboard boxes.
Most contained documents.
Old correspondence.
Newspaper clippings.
Employee records.
And a sealed metal case.
Claire opened it.
Inside was a cassette tape labeled in her mother's handwriting:
November 18 — 1:04 a.m.
Claire's fingers trembled.
An old portable cassette recorder sat beneath the tape.
She inserted it and pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a man's weak voice emerged.
“Victoria? Please... I need help.”
Claire covered her mouth.
It was her father.
His voice.
After twenty-three years.
He struggled to breathe.
“Laurent left me. The car's going to burn. Please tell someone where I am.”
A woman's voice answered.
“Julien, listen carefully. Armand says an ambulance is coming.”
“Don't trust him.”
A painful cough.
Then Julien spoke again.
“Tell Claire I love her. Tell Marianne I tried to make this right.”
Claire began crying.
On the recording, her father whispered one last sentence.
“Victoria... if I die, tell them what Armand buried beneath the old chapel.”
The tape clicked.
Then a second voice appeared.
A man's voice.
Cold.
Familiar.
“Turn that recording off, Victoria.”
May you like
Claire froze.
It was Armand Beaumont.
