We drove to Eleanor’s Denver residence without calling first. Luna insisted. Victor objected. I stayed out of that argument because both of them had already decided what they were going to do before they began speaking.
Eleanor lived in a brick house near the botanical gardens, elegant but far smaller than Blackwood. Luna had once told me her mother moved there after Richard died because the estate contained too many rooms filled with people who were gone.
At seven-thirty, Eleanor answered the door wearing a robe over pajamas.
Her expression changed when she saw Luna.
“Naomi?”
“She’s alive.”
Relief crossed Eleanor’s face.
“Thank God.”
Then she noticed Victor.
Then me.
“What happened?”
Luna walked inside.
“We need to talk.”
Eleanor closed the door.
“Obviously.”
We gathered in a sitting room where family photographs sat on tables rather than walls.
Luna did not sit.
“Do you still have access to the legacy key safe at Sterling?”
Eleanor stared at her.
“What?”
“Answer me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Richard designated me years ago.”
“When did you last use it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
Eleanor’s face hardened.
“I don’t appreciate being interrogated in my home.”
“And I don’t appreciate discovering your name on an access list hours after Naomi was beaten unconscious.”
The color left Eleanor’s face.
“What?”
Victor explained.
Naomi’s badge.
The archive room.
The mechanical key.
The missing file.
Eleanor lowered herself into a chair.
“I didn’t take it.”
“Can you prove that?”
“Luna.”
“Can you?”
Her mother stared at her.
Then reached for her phone.
“I was here all night.”
“Alone?”
“My housekeeper was upstairs until ten. After that, yes.”
“Security system?”
“Yes.”
Victor accepted the phone.
Within minutes, he confirmed Eleanor’s alarm had remained armed from 10:18 p.m. until we arrived.
It did not prove she had never provided the key to someone else.
Luna knew that.
“So who has your access code?”
“Nobody.”
“Derek?”
“No.”
“Voss?”
“Certainly not.”
“Father?”
“He’s dead.”
Luna flinched as though Eleanor had slapped her.
Eleanor immediately softened.
“I’m sorry.”
Luna looked away.
I took out my phone and showed Eleanor the messages.
You are asking the wrong Sterling.
Your father trusted Richard.
Richard trusted Eleanor.
Ask what happened the night Thomas ran.
Eleanor read them.
Her hands began trembling.
Luna saw.
“You know.”
Eleanor gave the phone back.
“I know part of it.”
“What part?”
Her mother looked at me.
“This is not something I ever expected to tell you.”
“That makes two of us.”
She stood and walked toward the window.
“Your father did not simply disappear because Richard helped him.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
She turned.
“The night Thomas left Texas, he came to me first.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“Because Richard wasn’t there.”
“Where was he?”
“At a Sterling retreat in Colorado.”
“Then how did Thomas reach you?”
“He knew I handled some of Richard’s personal correspondence. He arrived at our house injured.”
Mom’s memory.
Blood on his shirt.
Eleanor continued.
“He said Voss had discovered that he copied records.”
“What records?”
“Payments. Client files. Surveillance orders. Things that could have destroyed several careers.”
“Did he give them to you?”
“Some.”
Luna sat now.
“What did you do?”
“I hid him.”
My chest tightened.
“Where?”
“In the guesthouse.”
“For how long?”
“One night.”
“And then?”
“I called Richard.”
Eleanor pressed her fingertips against her mouth for a moment.
“He told me to get Thomas out of the state immediately.”
“So you helped him leave.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling my mother.”
Her eyes filled with regret.
“Thomas refused to let us contact Caroline.”
“Why?”
“He believed her phone was being watched.”
“That didn’t stop him from leaving her with a nine-year-old.”
“No.”
The answer was quiet.
Not defensive.
That made it worse.
“What happened next?”
“Richard arranged transportation and documents through someone he believed he could trust.”
“Who?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“Graham Voss.”
Luna stood.
“What?”
“I didn’t know what Voss had done.”
“You sent Thomas through the man hunting him?”
“We did not know Voss was the problem yet.”
“Thomas did.”
“He suspected him.”
“Apparently correctly.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I know.”
I felt sick.
“Did Voss try to kill him?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“The driver never arrived.”
Eleanor’s voice dropped.
“Thomas disappeared from the guesthouse before dawn.”
“On his own?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He left a note saying the route had been compromised.”
I stared at her.
“Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“Richard kept it.”
The missing archive file.
Luna understood too.
“That was in the cabinet.”
“Possibly.”
“What else?”
Eleanor looked at her daughter.
“Richard spent years trying to find Thomas afterward.”
“He told me he had helped Thomas disappear.”
“He did, eventually.”
“What does that mean?”
“For almost four years, Richard had no idea whether Thomas was alive.”
My anger shifted.
I had imagined Richard orchestrating everything cleanly.
He hadn’t.
He had failed.
Then tried to repair the failure in secret.
Eleanor sat again.
“Thomas contacted him through an intermediary when Adam was thirteen.”
I looked up sharply.
“He was alive.”
“Yes.”
“And he knew where we were?”
“I believe so.”
“Did he ask about us?”
“All the time.”
I laughed once, bitterly.
“That is supposed to help?”
“No.”
“Because it doesn’t.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t he come back?”
“Because Voss was still working through other people. Thomas believed returning would expose you.”
“For twenty-two years?”
Eleanor held my gaze.
“I cannot defend his choice. I can only tell you what he believed.”
Luna asked, “How did Father know Adam would eventually work at Sterling?”
Eleanor looked uncomfortable.
“He didn’t.”
“Then what was the recruitment?”
“Richard offered Adam an interview after Thomas asked him to keep an eye on him.”
I stared at her.
“So my father did arrange it.”
“Indirectly.”
“Why?”
“Thomas worried you were drifting professionally.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
“That sounds like him.”
Eleanor gave the smallest smile.
“He told Richard you were talented but stubborn.”
“That definitely sounds like him.”
Luna said, “And Father agreed?”
“He felt he owed Thomas.”
“That explains Adam entering the company. It does not explain the letter imagining us together.”
Eleanor looked at Luna.
“Richard noticed you noticed him.”
I turned toward her.
“What?”
Luna went very still.
Her mother continued.
“Years ago. He mentioned it once.”
“Mother.”
“He said there was a young copywriter who challenged a client in a meeting and that you intervened afterward.”
My mouth opened.
The intern incident.
Luna’s face reddened slightly.
“I intervened because the disciplinary recommendation was absurd.”
“I know.”
Eleanor smiled faintly.
“Richard thought you were interested.”
“I was interested in fairness.”
“Of course.”
I looked at Luna.
“You noticed me before the background investigation.”
She glared at her mother.
Eleanor appeared almost amused.
“Apparently.”
Luna said, “This is irrelevant.”
“It is deeply relevant to me.”
She turned to me.
“It is not.”
“Absolutely relevant.”
“Adam.”
It was the first almost-normal moment we had experienced all morning.
Then Eleanor’s expression changed.
“There is something else.”
The normality vanished.
“Of course there is,” I said.
She looked toward Luna.
“The archive cabinet was not Richard’s final safeguard.”
“What was?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Luna exhaled sharply.
“Mother.”
“He told me there were three copies of the most important records.”
“Where?”
“One with him. One with Thomas. One somewhere neither Voss nor Derek could reach.”
“Where?”
“He called it the Sterling key.”
We all went still.
Not a physical key.
A phrase.
“What does it mean?” Luna asked.
“I never knew.”
“Naomi was attacked because someone asked for the Sterling key.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Victor said, “Could it be a person?”
“I don’t know.”
“Account?”
“I don’t know.”
“Location?”
“I don’t know.”
Luna looked close to exploding.
I stepped in.
“What did Richard say exactly?”
Eleanor concentrated.
“He said, ‘If I fail, the Sterling key will tell Luna where to look.’”
“Tell Luna.”
“Yes.”
“So it was meant specifically for her.”
“Yes.”
“Did he say anything else?”
Eleanor shook her head.
Then stopped.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“He said she would understand when she stopped thinking like his successor.”
Luna stared.
“And started thinking like what?”
Eleanor’s eyes moved to me.
“Like his daughter.”
The answer seemed to hurt Luna.
She looked away.
I understood why.
Richard had spent her entire life teaching her to think like an heir.
Now his final instruction required her to become something he had never given her space to be.
A daughter.
We spent another hour going through Eleanor’s memories.
Nothing else explained the phrase.
Before we left, she caught my arm.
“Adam.”
Luna and Victor were near the door.
“What?”
“I am sorry.”
“For what?”
“For helping Thomas leave.”
I looked at her.
“If you hadn’t, would he have survived?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then neither of us knows what you should have done.”
Her eyes filled.
“That is kinder than I deserve.”
“I didn’t say I forgive anybody.”
“No.”
“But I’m trying not to punish the wrong people.”
Eleanor nodded.
Outside, Luna waited beside the car.
“You handled her better than I did.”
“She wasn’t my mother.”
“That’s your explanation?”
“It’s a significant variable.”
We climbed in.
For several minutes, Luna said nothing.
Then she asked, “Are you angry that I noticed you?”
I looked at her.
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
“Yes.”
“Poorly.”
“I’m tired.”
“I am delighted.”
“Why?”
“Because now I know the great Luna Sterling was apparently interested in a junior copywriter years before she hired him as a temporary husband.”
“I was not interested.”
“Your mother thinks otherwise.”
“My mother enjoys inventing narratives.”
“Your father noticed too.”
“Please stop.”
I smiled.
It felt good.
Then Victor’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
We waited.
“Yes. Send it.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?” Luna asked.
“Security found Naomi’s badge.”
“Where?”
“In Derek’s office.”
Silence.
Luna’s face hardened.
“Convenient.”
“Too convenient,” I said.
Victor nodded.
“Exactly.”
Five minutes later, he received the photograph.
Naomi’s badge lay inside the top drawer of Derek’s desk.
Beside it sat the mechanical archive key.
And beneath both objects was an envelope.
Addressed to Luna.
Victor zoomed in.
One line was visible through the open flap.
If you want to know who killed your father, ask your brother why he waited six minutes to call for help.
Luna stopped breathing.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: Derek Finally Admitted Why He Waited Before Calling for Help, but His Version of Richard’s Death Pointed Straight Back to Voss
The Morning My Boss Closed Her Office Door, Opened a File About My Life, and Made an Impossible Offer
Part 10 of 26
