Chapter 12
Chapter 12 – The Blackwood Estate
The drive north along the Hudson River took nearly two hours. As the skyline of Manhattan faded into the rearview mirror, the landscape grew wilder, more suffocating. By the time Oliver turned the sedan onto Blackwood Lane, the autumn fog had rolled in from the river, swallowing the headlights.
The address led to a secluded Victorian house hidden behind a dense wall of overgrown weeping willows. The dark grey paint was peeling like dead skin, and the wraparound porch groaned against the cold wind. It looked like a house that had spent decades trying to forget itself.
"Are you sure about this, Catherine?" Oliver asked, his hand lingering near the door lock. "We don't know who is inside. With Henry's trial looming, this could be a setup."
"Henry is in a federal holding cell, Oliver. His assets are frozen," I said, opening my door. "And whoever sent that thimble knows secrets Henry couldn't even dream of."
The gravel crunched beneath my shoes as I walked up the porch steps. Before I could even raise my hand to knock, the heavy oak door creaked open.
An older woman stood in the dim hallway. Her hair was a crown of snow-white silk, and her face was lined with deep, permanent valleys of sorrow. But it was her clothes that stopped my breath. Wrapped tightly around her shoulders was a handmade woolen shawl. It was a complex, beautiful basket-weave pattern—the exact design Albert and I had spent three months perfecting for our first commercial collection in 1994. It was a pattern that had never been released to the public.
"I wondered how long it would take you to find the ledger," the woman said. Her voice didn't have the venom of Emily or the arrogance of Henry. It was soft, brittle, and infinitely tired. "Come in, Catherine. The tea is already cold, but the house is warm."
May you like
Inside, the air smelled of dried lavender, old paper, and machine oil. As I stepped into the parlor, my heart stopped. The walls weren't decorated with traditional art. They were covered in Albert’s original sketches. Hundreds of them. Designs for dresses, fabric swatches, charcoal portraits.
"My name is Eleanor," the woman said, gesturing for me to sit on a faded velvet sofa. "And twenty-four years ago, your husband made a choice that guaranteed your safety, but destroyed my daughter’s life."
