Chapter 9 - THE FIANCÉE'S SECOND PLAN| Vivian returned to the Ashcom estate shortly before dawn.
She did not enter through the front doors. Instead, she used the side entrance her father-in-law had once reserved for private business guests. She removed her coat, smoothed her dress, and walked into the kitchen as though she had spent the evening at a charity event rather than arranging the disappearance of a woman.
Catherine was waiting by the window.
"Where have you been?"
Vivian paused.
"Out."
"Don't lie to me."
Vivian looked at her mother-in-law and smiled faintly.
"Everyone in this family keeps demanding the truth. It must be exhausting."
Catherine approached her.
"Did you send Adrian Pike to the clinic?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Did you use my name to call Julian?"
Vivian's smile faded.
"He's my fiancé. I don't need permission to speak to him."
"Did you arrange for Nomi to be taken?"
Vivian said nothing.
Catherine closed her eyes.
"Good Lord."
"Don't pretend you're innocent," Vivian snapped. "You knew about the lost girl. You knew what she would mean for the Callaway trust. You kept it secret because you were afraid of what your family would lose."
"I kept it secret because people were threatened and killed."
"And now you've chosen her over me."
Catherine stared at her.
"I have chosen not to destroy another innocent person."
Vivian laughed bitterly.
"She's not innocent. She wants the money, the name, and Julian."
"She refused the trust before she even knew it existed."
"Then she's cleverer than I thought."
Catherine turned toward the door.
"I'm calling the police."
Vivian's expression hardened.
"If you do, the truth about the clinic will come out. Every payment. Every false report. Every signature."
Catherine stopped.
Vivian stepped closer.
"Your husband wasn't the only Ashcom involved. You signed the transfer papers. You authorized the private medical expenses. You agreed that the child should disappear."
Catherine went pale.
"I believed the baby was dead."
"You believed what was convenient."
Catherine raised her hand as though to strike her, then stopped.
Vivian smiled.
"Go ahead. Make the story easier for everyone to understand."
Catherine lowered her hand.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Because I spent my entire life earning the future you promised me. I was supposed to marry Julian, unite our families, and secure my place. Then a woman who serves drinks appears with a scar and suddenly everyone calls her an heiress."
"That doesn't justify what you've done."
"It justifies protecting what belongs to me."
Catherine looked at her daughter with a grief so deep that Vivian briefly turned away.
"You don't even know what the trust contains."
"Then tell me."
"I can't."
"Because you don't know?"
"Because your father hid the original agreement. It wasn't merely a financial trust. It was a legal arrangement connected to the children whose identities were altered after the clinic fire."
Vivian stared at her.
"Children? Plural?"
Catherine realized too late that she had said too much.
Vivian reached for her arm.
"What other child?"
Catherine pulled away.
"You will stop this now."
Vivian took out her phone.
"Not until I understand everything."
She placed a call to Adrian Pike.
He answered after several rings.
"Did you get the notebook?"
"No."
"Then get it."
"Julian has the original envelope."
"Take it from him."
"That's not possible."
Vivian's voice sharpened.
"Everyone has a price, Adrian."
"Not this time."
She ended the call and looked toward the staircase.
Julian had returned.
He stood at the landing, holding the recovered envelope.
"Tell me what other child you're talking about," he said.
Vivian's face drained of color.
Catherine slowly turned toward her son.
Then Julian placed the envelope on the table and opened it.
Inside was the photograph of the little girl beside the burning building.
On the reverse, Richard Ashcom had written a second sentence beneath the first.
If she returns, do not trust Eleanor. The boy was never declared missing.
Julian stared at the words.
"What boy?"
Catherine began to cry.
Vivian backed away.
Because everyone in the room understood that the lost child was no longer the only secret.
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Someone else had been erased from the same night.
And someone in the Ashcom family had spent twenty-six years pretending that boy had never existed.
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