Chapter 5: My Mother's Last Secret
The event director was gone.
Security searched the ballroom, the loading area, and the underground parking garage.
His car was still there.
His identification badge had been abandoned in a restroom.
But the man himself had disappeared.
My father didn't seem surprised.
“Someone wanted to make sure we saw him,” he said.
Eleanor frowned.
“Why would he deliberately leave evidence?””
“To frighten us. Or to make us look in the wrong direction.””
I sat on the sofa, staring at the photograph of my mother's letter.
The words kept repeating in my mind.
If my daughter ever wears the dress with the wings, tell her the truth.
I had spent ten years believing my mother was gone and my father had died shortly afterward.
Now I was discovering that both of them had been connected to something much bigger than I could understand.
“Can we go home?”” I asked.
My father turned toward me.
“Not yet.””
“I want my mother's notebook.””
“I know.””
“I want to know what happened.””
He knelt in front of me.
“And I promise you that we will find out.””
I looked at him.
“But I need you to promise me something first.””
“Anything.””
“Don't disappear again.””
His expression broke.
He took both my hands.
“I won't leave you again.””
I wanted to believe him.
More than anything.
But ten years of waiting had taught me that promises were fragile things.
We left the competition building through a private exit.
Eleanor arranged two vehicles and accompanied us to a secure apartment in the city.
My father explained that he had purchased the property under a different name several years earlier.
It was small compared with the Carter mansion.
There were no marble floors or enormous chandeliers.
Just three bedrooms, a modest kitchen, and a living room with bookshelves.
But it felt safer than the house where I had grown up.
For the first time in years, I could breathe without wondering whether Vanessa was listening.
My father placed his jacket over the back of a chair.
Then he looked at me.
“Are you hungry?””
I almost laughed.
“You've been dead for ten years, and that's the first thing you ask me?””
He smiled sadly.
“Your mother always said I worried about food when I didn't know what else to say.””
I looked away.
“I'm not hungry.””
He nodded.
“Then perhaps we should talk.””
We sat at the kitchen table.
Eleanor opened her laptop and placed several documents in front of us.
“I contacted Claire,” she said.
“She has agreed to meet us tomorrow morning.””
“Where is she?”” my father asked.
“She's staying with a colleague.””
“Good.””
I leaned forward.
“Can we talk about Mom now?””
My father looked at Eleanor.
She nodded.
He took a deep breath.
“Your mother was named Amelia Carter before she married me. She was a textile artist and designer. We met when I was twenty-four.””
He smiled faintly.
“She hated my first collection.””
I looked surprised.
“Really?””
“She said my dresses looked like expensive curtains.””
Despite everything, I laughed.
My father laughed too.
For a moment, he looked exactly like the man I remembered.
“She challenged me,” he continued.
“She showed me how to use fabric differently. How to make a dress move with the person wearing it instead of forcing the person to move around the dress.””
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small photograph.
It showed a young woman standing beside a sewing table.
She had dark hair, bright eyes, and a beautiful smile.
My mother.
I touched the photograph.
“She looks happy.””
“She was.””
My father turned it over.
There was a handwritten message.
For our little star, who will someday make the world beautiful.
I covered my mouth.
“Did she write this?””
He nodded.
“She wrote it shortly before she became ill.””
I stared at him.
“What illness?””
He looked down.
“She didn't have an illness, Nia.””
The room became silent.
I slowly lowered the photograph.
“What?””
“Your mother was investigating financial irregularities within the company. She discovered that someone had been selling designs without permission and moving the profits through private accounts.””
“Who?””
“We never found out for certain.””
I thought about Vanessa.
“Was it her?””
“She was involved in the company administration at the time. But your mother believed someone else was directing the operation.””
“Uncle Richard?””
My father nodded.
“Richard handled several overseas accounts.””
I felt cold.
“What happened to Mom?””
My father took a long breath.
“One evening, she told me she had found evidence. She said she needed to meet someone who could help her expose the people responsible.””
“Who?””
“She never told me.””
He paused.
“She left home that night. The next morning, I received a call saying she had been involved in a serious car accident.””
My hands tightened around the photograph.
“Was that the truth?””
“The hospital records said she had died from her injuries.””
“But you don't believe that.””
“I believed it then.””
He looked at me.
“Until I found something in Daniel's files.””
Eleanor opened her laptop.
She turned the screen toward us.
It showed a scanned medical report.
The patient's name was Amelia Carter.
The date was ten years earlier.
But beneath the name was a handwritten note.
*Patient transferred before official identification. Destination undisclosed.*
I stared at the screen.
“Transferred where?””
“We don't know,” Eleanor said.
My father rubbed his eyes.
“Daniel found the document only three months ago.””
I stood.
“Then Mom might be alive?””
Neither of them answered.
“Dad!””
He rose and took my shoulders.
“I don't want to give you false hope.””
“But you just showed me a report saying she was transferred!””
“I know.””
“Then she could be alive!””
“Yes,” he whispered.
“She could.””
My legs felt weak.
For ten years, I had believed I had lost both parents.
Now one had returned from the dead.
And the other might never have died.
I sat down again.
“Why did everyone lie to me?””
My father pulled out a chair.
“Because someone wanted you to believe there was nothing left to investigate.””
Eleanor closed the laptop.
“And there's another reason we need to find the notebook.””
She opened a photograph of its cover.
It was dark red leather, with a small gold star embossed in the center.
I recognized it.
I had seen it before.
Not in a photograph.
In Vanessa's bedroom.
She kept it inside a locked glass cabinet.
I had once asked her about it when I was nine.
She had slapped my hand away and told me never to touch it.
“That's Mom's notebook,” I whispered.
Eleanor nodded.
“Daniel believed Amelia had hidden a key inside its lining.””
“A key to what?””
“We don't know.””
My father stood abruptly.
“I know.””
He walked to the bookshelf and pulled down an old photograph.
It showed my parents standing in front of a large building.
Behind them was a sign.
CARTER DESIGN ARCHIVES.
I had heard of the place.
It was the original design studio my father had closed after the accident.
“There's a private vault beneath that building,” he explained.
“Your mother designed it. She used it to store original sketches and prototypes.””
Eleanor looked surprised.
“You never mentioned a vault.””
“Because I didn't know she had finished it.””
He turned the photograph over.
A small handwritten message appeared.
The truth is where the wings rest.
I stared at it.
The wings.
My competition gown.
My mother's notebook.
Everything seemed connected.
Then Eleanor's laptop chimed.
A new email had arrived.
She opened it.
Her face went pale.
“What is it?”” my father asked.
She turned the screen toward him.
It was a scanned letter.
The handwriting belonged to my mother.
And at the bottom was a date.
The day after her supposed death.
My father stared at it.
May you like
Then he whispered:
“She was alive the day after the hospital declared her dead.””
