Chapter 6 - The Brother No One Spoke About
The dead man Eleanor mentioned was not Arthur Vale.
It was Lucien.
Alexander told me the truth at two in the morning while Monaco glittered beneath our hotel windows and Liam slept in the next room.
We sat at opposite ends of a long sofa, the distance between us deliberate.
“My brother was ten,” Alexander said. “I was seven. Vanessa was twelve.”
I waited.
He stared at his hands.
“We were at the family house outside Montreal. There was a lake behind it. We weren’t supposed to go near the water without an adult.”
“What happened?”
“Lucien drowned.”
His voice flattened on the last word.
I had seen trauma do that to people. Emotion went underground when the body decided feeling it would be too expensive.
“Were you there?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Vanessa too.”
I felt a chill.
“What do you remember?”
“Almost nothing. That’s the problem.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I remember Lucien yelling at Vanessa. I remember him holding papers. I remember my father coming down the path. Then I remember being inside the house with my mother screaming.”
“Did you see Lucien fall in?”
“No.”
“You were seven.”
“I know.”
“Memory after trauma can be fragmented.”
“I know that too.”
His impatience was not with me.
I leaned back.
“What were the papers?”
“I don’t know.”
Something inside me clicked.
“Did Lucien ever spend time in your father’s office?”
Alexander frowned. “He was obsessed with copying Dad. He wore his ties. Sat in his chair. Stole his pens.”
“And if he found documents?”
“He might have taken them.”
I opened my laptop.
Alexander gave me a tired look. “It’s two in the morning.”
“Crime doesn’t keep banker’s hours.”
That almost made him smile.
I pulled up the oldest records from Theo’s encrypted vault. Most files were recent, but several scanned ledgers went back nearly twenty-five years.
One entity appeared repeatedly.
LUCENT CHILDREN’S FUND.
Not Lucien.
Lucent.
Close enough to make my pulse jump.
“Was that a real charity?” I asked.
Alexander leaned closer. “I’ve never heard of it.”
The fund received donations from Vale subsidiaries, then transferred money to medical research groups in Canada and Europe. At least, that was what the records claimed.
But the recipient account numbers did not match the hospitals named in the memos.
They matched private holding companies.
“This started before Lucien died,” I said.
Alexander went still.
I searched for the date of the drowning.
August 14, 1998.
Two days earlier, a payment of nine hundred thousand dollars had been routed from Lucent Children’s Fund to a numbered company in Quebec.
The authorization initials were A.V.
Arthur Vale.
Another approval appeared beside them.
E.V.
Eleanor.
Alexander stood abruptly.
“My mother said Dad made the decisions.”
“Looks like she made some too.”
He walked to the window.
I opened the scanned attachment linked to the transfer.
It was damaged, but a handwritten note was visible along the margin.
L. SAW LEDGER. HANDLE BEFORE BOARD REVIEW.
I read it twice.
Then I looked at Alexander.
He had already understood.
“No,” he said.
“I’m not saying—”
“No.” He turned. “My parents did not kill my brother.”
“I didn’t say they did.”
“You thought it.”
“I thought there’s a note saying someone named L saw a ledger two days before Lucien died.”
He paced once across the room.
“Vanessa’s name starts with V. Mine starts with A. Lucien is the only L.”
“Yes.”
His face tightened.
“I need air.”
I closed the laptop. “Alex.”
He stopped.
It was the first time I had called him Alex since the divorce.
We both noticed.
I hated that my heart did too.
“You don’t have to solve twenty-eight years tonight.”
He looked at me. “You learned to say that after I destroyed your life?”
“I learned a lot of things after you destroyed my life.”
He accepted the hit.
Then Liam cried out from the bedroom.
I was on my feet instantly.
Alexander moved too, then stopped himself at the doorway.
I went in.
Liam was sitting upright, eyes wet.
“Bad dream,” he whispered.
I climbed onto the bed and pulled him against me.
Alexander stayed in the hall.
Liam saw him over my shoulder.
“Is he still here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I looked at Alexander.
He looked terrified again.
Not of money.
Not of scandal.
Of a little boy asking a simple question.
“Because we’re talking,” I said.
Liam rubbed his eyes. “Can he sit?”
Alexander looked at me for permission.
I nodded once.
He came to the edge of the bed and sat carefully, leaving space between us.
Liam studied him.
“Do you have nightmares?”
Alexander swallowed. “Sometimes.”
“What about?”
“My brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“I did.”
“Where is he?”
Alexander looked at me, then back at Liam.
“He died when I was little.”
Liam’s face softened with immediate childlike sympathy.
“That’s sad.”
“It is.”
Liam reached across the blanket and put his hand on Alexander’s wrist.
Alexander stopped breathing.
For a second, I saw the man I had married beneath all the years between us.
Then my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
Unknown number.
I picked it up.
A message appeared.
STOP DIGGING INTO MONTREAL.
Below it was a photograph.
Taken less than a minute earlier.
Through our hotel window.
It showed me, Liam, and Alexander sitting on the bed.
My blood went cold.
Someone was watching us.
I stood and closed the curtains.
Alexander saw the screen.
His face changed.
“Security.”
He was already dialing.
A second message arrived.
THIS TIME, THE CHILD IS REAL.
I stared at the words.
Five years ago, someone had weaponized the possibility of my pregnancy.
Now they were threatening the son they had failed to erase from Alexander’s life.
I looked at Liam.
Fear burned away.
What replaced it was colder.
“No more waiting,” I said.
Alexander lowered his phone.
“What are you going to do?”
May you like
I looked at the old ledgers on my laptop.
“I’m going back to where Lucien died.”
