Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED COAT
The woman in the red coat arrived at the hotel at 2:13 a.m.
Security stopped her downstairs.
She asked for Sebastian.
Not me.
When she entered the suite, she looked around sixty.
Silver hair.
Red wool coat.
No makeup.
She carried an old leather folder.
Sebastian recognized her.
“Evelyn Shaw.”
She nodded.
“You grew up.”
“You disappeared.”
“I had reasons.”
I held Lily closer.
“Who is she?”
Sebastian answered.
“My father’s attorney.”
Former attorney, apparently.
Evelyn looked at Lily.
Her face changed.
“Dear God.”
I stood.
“Don’t.”
She stopped immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“Everybody looks at my baby like she’s a bank account.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“That is exactly why I came.”
She placed the folder on the table.
Nine years earlier, Sebastian’s father had helped restructure a private family trust created by Lucia and Veronica’s grandfather.
The trust owned commercial property.
Warehouses.
Investment accounts.
A stake in a medical supply company.
Worth more than anyone had expected.
The beneficiary rules were bizarre.
The controlling interest passed through the first qualifying grandchild born to Daniel’s branch of the family.
“Lily?” I whispered.
Evelyn nodded.
“Potentially.”
“Potentially?”
“There was another child.”
Sebastian leaned forward.
“The recording said they lost the first child.”
Evelyn’s eyes hardened.
“They did not lose her.”
Silence.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“She was taken.”
My skin prickled.
“By whom?”
“Lucia.”
Evelyn explained that Daniel had fathered a daughter at nineteen.
The mother was pressured into signing custody papers.
Then the child disappeared from public records.
Sebastian asked, “Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why come now?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Because your daughter’s birth activated a dormant trust review.”
“How would they even know Lily exists?”
“Daniel submitted her birth record.”
I remembered him asking for the certificate.
He had found another way.
Evelyn opened the folder.
Inside was a copy of the trust.
Then another document.
A handwritten note from Sebastian’s father.
IF THEY COME FOR THE SECOND CHILD, OPEN OFFICE FILE 17.
Sebastian stared at it.
“File seventeen?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Your father kept one recording separate.”
“Where?”
She looked toward him.
“In the wall behind his desk.”
Sebastian stood.
Then his phone buzzed.
His security chief.
Someone had broken into Calder House.
Not the restaurant.
His home.
May you like
And according to the alarm map, the intruder had gone straight to his private study.
