Chapter 6
Elise contacted me before I found her.
One message arrived through Rafe’s phone.
I WILL COME AT NOON. NO ASHTON.
I almost laughed.
Apparently dead sisters still issued conditions.
I agreed.
Noon.
Winter garden.
Elise entered wearing the gray coat Elsie described.
For one second, my body forgot how death worked.
She did not look exactly like Marina.
Older.
Sharper.
Different eyes.
But enough.
Same mouth.
Same way of holding her shoulders.
I understood Elsie immediately.
“Elise.”
She nodded.
“Gideon.”
No hug.
No apology yet.
Good.
She placed one silver hairpin on the table.
Matching the one from the passage.
“I lost the other.”
“I found it.”
“I assumed.”
She looked toward the art wing.
“How is Elsie?”
“Confused.”
Pain crossed her face.
“I never told her I was Marina.”
“I know.”
“She decided.”
“I know.”
Elise sat.
Then told me why she returned now.
Marina’s final letter instructed her to wait until Elsie could understand simple questions.
Not family politics.
Only enough to recognize a melody and a face.
Why wait?
Because Marina feared Nadine would seize any contact while Elsie was a baby and call it instability.
A runaway Arden aunt appearing around an infant Vale heir would be easy to discredit.
At four, Elsie could speak.
Remember.
Repeat.
Become difficult to erase.
I hated that my daughter had become part of a strategy even on Marina’s side.
Elise understood my expression.
“I hated the instruction too.”
Good.
“Why follow it?”
“Because your wife knew I would otherwise come to her funeral and burn every secret open.”
I almost smiled.
Marina knew her sister.
“What are you looking for in the painting?”
Elise became serious.
“A key.”
Of course.
There was always a key.
“To what?”
She looked at Nadine’s wing through the glass.
May you like
“To the room where your wife found the compact.”
And apparently Marina had hidden more than letters behind one painting.
