A woman stood behind him.
She was in her late fifties, narrow-faced, elegant, wearing a black wool coat and leather gloves. I had never seen her before, yet something about her posture made the room tighten.
My father rose.
“Eleanor,” he said.
The woman looked at me, then at Leo.
Her expression softened for one brief second.
Then she turned to my father.
“You were right,” she said. “The Vance boy has the North Harbor file.”
My father went very still.
I sat up too quickly, pain tearing through me.
“Who are you?”
The woman’s eyes returned to mine.
“My name is Eleanor Price,” she said. “I was your mother’s attorney.”
My pulse hammered.
“My mother didn’t have an attorney named Eleanor Price.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “She did. She just never told you.”
My father closed his eyes.
And then Eleanor reached into her coat and removed a small envelope, yellowed with age, sealed with wax.
My mother’s initials were pressed into it.
A.B.
Anna Brooks.
My hands began to shake.
“She left instructions,” Eleanor said. “If Charles ever moved you and your child into protective custody, I was to deliver this personally.”
“My child?” I whispered.
Eleanor’s gaze flicked to Leo.
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible. My mother died when I was twenty-two.”
“She planned for many possibilities.”
The room went silent except for Leo’s soft breathing.
Eleanor stepped closer and held out the envelope.
Across the front, in handwriting I had not seen in ten years, were seven words.
For Audrey, when the men come back.
I looked at my father.
His face had gone pale.
And for the first time in my entire life, Charles Brooks looked less like the most powerful man in the room and more like a man who had been afraid of this moment for years.
I broke the seal.
Inside was a single photograph.
My mother stood on a pier beside Lake Michigan, smiling tightly into the camera.
Next to her stood a much younger Victoria Vance.
And between them, holding a newborn baby wrapped in a blue blanket, was Dominic’s father, Arthur.
On the back, my mother had written one sentence.
Audrey, if you are reading this, do not trust the Vance family with your child.
My blood turned to ice.
From somewhere beyond the glass walls, sirens wailed faintly across the city.