Chapter 7 - THE SECOND TRAITOR
I drove home in a daze.
The words burned in my mind.
Someone inside your home helped Vanessa. Someone close. Trust no one. Not even Clara.
Clara.
The woman who had saved Emma. Who had stood by me. Who had risked everything to expose the truth.
Could it be her?
My heart rebelled at the thought. But the warning was there. Written in secret. Hidden inside a locket. Placed there by someone who knew everything.
I walked into the house just after one in the morning.
Clara was sitting in the living room. She had not slept. She stood up the moment I entered.
“Mr. Adrian! You are back!”
She rushed toward me, relief flooding her face.
“I was so worried. What happened? Did you meet him? Did you see Silas?”
I looked at her. At the concern in her eyes. At the genuine fear for my safety.
And yet… the note said Trust no one. Not even Clara.
“I met him,” I said carefully. “He gave me this.”
I held out the locket.
Clara’s eyes widened. She reached out, then pulled her hand back as if burned.
“That is your wife’s. Where did he get it?”
“Vanessa stole it,” I said. “Silas gave it back to me tonight.”
Clara frowned.
“Why would he do that? Why return something so precious?”
I opened the locket and handed her the note.
She read it.
Her face went pale.
She looked up at me, her eyes glistening.
“You believe this?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” I admitted. “That is why I am asking you. Is there something you haven’t told me, Clara? Something about Vanessa? About who helped her get into this house?”
Clara took a breath. She folded the note slowly and handed it back.
“I have kept secrets, yes. To protect you. To protect the children. But I never helped anyone hurt this family. And I certainly never helped Vanessa. If someone wrote this… they are trying to turn you against the only person who has stood by you since the day your wife died.”
Her words struck me deep.
“Why would Silas give this to me?” I asked. “If Clara is guilty… why warn me? Unless… he is the one lying. Unless he wrote it himself to make me doubt everyone I trust.”
Clara nodded slowly.
“It is exactly what I would do. If I were him. Divide you. Isolate you. Make you turn on your own allies. Until you have no one left to trust but him.”
I looked at the note again.
It made sense.
Silas wanted me alone. Vulnerable. Unprotected.
But then… who wrote it? And why?
“Clara,” I said quietly, “did you recognize the handwriting?”
Clara hesitated.
“I have seen it before. Once. In your wife’s diary. She wrote it herself. Days before she died.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath me.
“My wife wrote this?”
“She did,” Clara said. “She suspected someone. She knew someone was coming. She hid this note… so that if anything happened to her… you would find it. And you would be prepared.”
I sank onto the sofa.
May you like
My wife had written this warning. Before she died.
She knew.
