Chapter 28: The Truce

The sketchbook was heavy, damp with age and neglect. Elena sat on the attic floor, the insulation itching against her bare arms, flipping through the pages.

The drawings were crude but terrifyingly specific. A woman with red hair crying. A man with silver hair locking a door. A plate of food left outside a door, untouched.

And the dates.

The child had dated every drawing.

*October 28, 1986. MY ROOM.*
*November 15, 1986. COLD.*
*December 25, 1986. TOYS.*

This wasn't a baby. This was a child who knew how to write, how to draw, how to document his own imprisonment.

Elena heard a noise downstairs. The sound of glass breaking.

She shoved the sketchbook into her waistband, pulling her sweater down to cover it. She scrambled to the ladder.

The house was silent again.

She climbed down. She moved through the hallway, avoiding the creaky boards she had memorized over twenty years.

The living room was empty. But the French doors to the terrace were open.

Beatrice was standing there. She held a crowbar in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. She had smashed the neck of the bottle against the stone balustrade.

"Looking for something?" Beatrice asked, her voice slurred but steady.

"Beatrice," Elena whispered. "What are you doing here?"

"I came for my inheritance," Beatrice said, taking a swig from the jagged bottle. "Since Vane won't give it to me, I thought I'd take it."

She gestured with the crowbar. "I know where the safe is, Elena. I know the combination. Or I used to. Before Mother changed it."

"The safe is empty," Elena said. "Vane took everything."

Beatrice laughed. "He took the jewelry. He didn't take the gold. Mother didn't trust banks. She kept bullion in the wall behind the portrait."

She walked toward the fireplace. She raised the crowbar.

"Don't," Elena said. "The cameras. He's watching."

Beatrice stopped. She looked at the stag head. She looked at the smoke detector.

"Let him watch," she snarled. "Let him see me take what's mine."

She swung the crowbar. It smashed into the plaster next to the portrait.

"Beatrice, stop!" Elena grabbed her arm. "You're going to bring the police."

"The police are already here!" Beatrice shouted. "They took Julian! I saw them!"

She shook Elena off. She swung again. The wall cracked.

"They took him because he started remembering," Elena said. "Because he remembered the window."

Beatrice froze. The crowbar lowered an inch.

"The window?" she whispered.

"The one in the attic. The one boarded up." Elena pulled the sketchbook from her waistband. She opened it to the drawing of the red-haired woman. "Do you remember her, Beatrice? The woman who stayed in the carriage house?"

Beatrice looked at the drawing. Her face went pale.

"Valerie," she said.

"She was here," Elena said. "In 1986. She was here when the baby died. And she was here when the new one arrived."

Beatrice stared at the drawing. "She wasn't just a guest. She was... she was always around. Talking to Vane. Arguing with Mother."

"She's Julian's mother," Elena said. "The real mother."

Beatrice dropped the crowbar. It clattered on the hardwood floor.

"If she's his mother," Beatrice said, her voice trembling, "then who is my father?"

Elena looked at the drawing of the man locking the door. The silver hair. The sharp suit.

"I think you know," Elena said.

Beatrice looked at the portrait of Constance. Then she looked at the empty space where Vane usually stood.

"Oh god," she whispered. "That's why he protected him. That's why he swapped them."

"He wasn't saving the legacy," Elena said. "He was saving his son."

Beatrice looked at Elena. The hostility was gone, replaced by a terrifying clarity.

"He killed my brother," she said. "To make room for his own."

She picked up the crowbar.

"Show me," she said. "Show me the rest."

Elena opened the sketchbook. But before she could turn the page, the lights in the house went out.

Total darkness.

Then, a voice from the hallway.

"I think that's enough show and tell for one evening, ladies."

Silas Vane stood in the doorway, a flashlight beam cutting through the dark. He wasn't holding a briefcase this time.

He was holding a gun.