Chapter 3 - The Shadow of Rosalind Vale
The heavy mahogany doors of the private library swung shut with a dull, heavy thud, sealing out the muffled clamor of the ballroom.
The library was massive, lined from floor to ceiling with leather-bound volumes, oil paintings in gilded frames, and tall arched windows overlooking the rainy Boston skyline. A fire crackled in the stone hearth, casting long, dancing shadows across the Persian rug.
Eleanor Vale was seated in a deep wingback chair near the fire. A private physician, summoned quietly from upstairs, checked her pulse with a silver pocket watch while a housemaid offered her a cup of chamomile tea with trembling hands.
Lucia sat on the edge of a velvet settee across the room, carefully smoothing down the fur of her stuffed rabbit. Adrian’s personal assistant, a young woman who looked terrified to breathe, had placed a plate of imported French pastries in front of her. Lucia hadn't touched them. She only watched me, her big eyes watchful, sensing the seismic shift in the air.
I stood in the center of the room, my server’s apron still tied around my waist. I refused to sit. Standing was the only way I could keep my legs from giving out completely.
Adrian stood by the mantelpiece. He had discarded his tuxedo jacket, unbuttoned his collar, and rolled up his white shirtsleeves. He looked less like a polished CEO and more like a predator trying to hold back an avalanche.
"Your mother," Adrian began, his voice gravelly. "When did she die?"
"Four years ago," I said, keeping my tone flat, guarded. "Ovarian cancer. She was treated at Boston Hope Clinic. She lived in a third-floor walk-up on Dorchester Avenue. She lived quietly. She harmed no one."
"And your father?"
"Never knew him. Mom said he died before I was born. It was just her and me."
Eleanor let out a soft, shuddering breath from the chair. "Did she have a scar? On the inside of her left wrist? A small, jagged mark shaped like a crescent moon?"
A cold jolt shot straight through my spine.
I stared at the old woman. My voice caught in my throat. "She told me... she told me she fell onto a broken glass milk bottle when she was seven years old."
Eleanor closed her eyes, and fresh tears leaked down her withered cheeks. "It wasn't a milk bottle. It was a garden lantern. In the rose arbor at the Vale estate in Newport. She was chasing my dog, Barnaby..."
Lucia froze. She looked down at the one-eared rabbit in her lap.
"Barnaby?" Lucia whispered. "That's my bunny’s name. Grandma named him."
"Dear God," Adrian murmured, running a hand over his face. He walked over to a heavy desk, pulled out a brass key, and unlocked the bottom drawer. From it, he retrieved a flat, velvet-lined mahogany box. He brought it over and set it on the low table between us.
He opened the lid.
Inside rested a sepia-toned photograph framed in silver. Beside it lay an antique gold locket shaped like an open book.
Adrian turned the photograph toward me.
I looked down, and my breath stopped completely.
The woman in the portrait was roughly eighteen years old. She wore a tailored riding jacket and had her dark chestnut hair pinned up loosely. She was laughing, looking off-camera with a spirited, rebellious twinkle in her eyes.
She looked so much like me that looking at the picture felt like staring into an antique mirror.
"Her name was not Rose Bennett," Adrian said, his voice dropping into a solemn cadence. "Her name was Rosalind Eleanor Vale. She was my father's younger sister. My aunt. And Eleanor’s youngest daughter."
The room seemed to spin. The floor felt unstable beneath my non-slip work shoes.
"No," I whispered, shaking my head. "No. My mother was a dance teacher. She scrubbed floors on weekends to pay my ballet tuition. She used to patch my winter coats with thread she took from the alterations shop where she pressed shirts. We were poor, Mr. Vale. We were always poor. If she had family... if she belonged to people who owned buildings like this... she would never have let us starve."
"She didn't run away because she wanted to," Eleanor said, her voice cracking with thirty years of repressed grief. "She was driven out."
Before Eleanor could explain, the heavy oak doors of the library burst open.
"I don't give a damn about his security!" a man’s booming, arrogant voice bellowed.
Senator Thomas Winthrop—Celeste’s father, a powerful political heavyweight with silver hair and ruthless eyes—stormed into the room, followed closely by Celeste. Celeste had wrapped a white mink stole around her shoulders, but her face was dark with fury.
"Adrian, this circus ends now," Senator Winthrop barked, pointing an accusatory finger toward me. "My daughter has been humiliated in front of our key donors and social peers! The press is outside the gates right now asking why the Vale engagement party was cleared by armed guards! You will remove this catering woman and her bastard child from these premises immediately, or I will ensure the State Police conduct a full audit of your shipping contracts!"
Adrian didn't flinch. He didn't even blink. He slowly turned his head to look at the man who was supposed to be his future father-in-law.
"Thomas," Adrian said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "If you ever raise your voice in this house again, I will release the offshore banking records from your 2018 campaign to the Department of Justice before the sun rises."
The Senator’s face turned from purple to a mottled, sickly gray. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.
"Adrian!" Celeste cried out, her eyes wide with disbelief. "Are you threatening my father? For *them*? Look at them! She’s a thief! She’s running a con! She probably bought that dance routine off the dark web or found some old diary! She is nobody!"
Adrian walked over to the table, picked up the velvet box, and held the silver-framed portrait of Rosalind Vale directly in front of Celeste’s face.
"Look at her," Adrian said with deadly precision. "Look at the woman in this frame, Celeste. And then look at Maya."
Celeste glanced at the photo. Then her eyes darted to my face.
The color drained from her lips. She took a step back, her fingers clutching her fur stole as if it were armor.
"That’s impossible," Celeste stammered, her voice losing its venom, replaced by naked fear. "Rosalind Vale died thirty years ago. Your family searched Europe, Asia, South America... she drowned in the Hudson. Everyone knows that!"
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"We never found a body," Eleanor said, rising slowly from her chair with an icy grandeur that silenced the room. She looked at Senator Winthrop with eyes full of ancient, burning hatred. "Because someone made sure she had to disappear. Isn't that right, Thomas?"
***
