Chapter 6 - The Aunt Who Lied to Save MeI had not seen Marianne Hart since the day before my wedding.
She had stood in the bridal suite in a navy dress she hated, staring at my reflection while I smiled at a future she had tried repeatedly to delay.
“You don’t know these people,” she had whispered.
I had laughed softly and told her nobody truly knew their in-laws.
She had not laughed back.
After the wedding, she became distant. Calls missed. Visits postponed. Excuses about school board meetings and migraines. I thought she disapproved of Grant. I thought she was punishing me for choosing a world she did not trust.
Now her voice trembled through a phone inside a secret cellar beneath Blackwood House.
“Celeste, don’t listen to them.”
“Aunt Marianne?”
Grant stared at the phone with pure alarm.
Helena looked murderous.
Agent Pike stepped closer.
“Marianne Hart, this is Special Agent Warren Pike. Where are you?”
There was shuffling, then a muffled male voice.
Marianne said quickly, “At the airfield. They told me Celeste was hurt. They said if I came, they’d let me see her.”
My throat closed.
Helena had used me as bait.
Pike signaled to his team.
“Marianne, are you restrained?”
“No. But there are men here. Private security. They took my phone, but one of them dropped this one when the alarm went off.”
“Stay on the line,” Pike said. “Do not confront them.”
Marianne ignored him.
“Celeste, listen to me. Your mother didn’t die the way they told you.”
The cellar became too quiet.
I whispered, “You said there was a car accident.”
“I know.”
“Was any of that true?”
Her breath broke.
“There was a car. There was no accident.”
Helena said sharply, “That woman is unstable.”
Marianne’s voice hardened.
For the first time in my life, I heard the steel beneath her gentleness.
“Hello, Helena.”
Helena went silent.
Marianne continued, “I wondered how long it would take before you ran out of sons to sacrifice.”
Grant looked at his mother.
“What does that mean?”
No one answered him.
I stepped closer to the phone.
“Tell me.”
Marianne said, “Eleanor found proof that Edmund’s father had forged the first transfer documents. She was going to go public. She had already moved controlling shares into a protected trust for you.”
“The trust that disappeared?”
“No,” Marianne said. “The trust that waited.”
My heart slammed.
Helena hissed, “Shut up.”
Marianne did not.
“Your mother knew they would come. She gave me two things before she died. You, and a key.”
“What key?”
“The one to the original Voss trust vault.”
Agent Pike’s eyes sharpened.
“Where is it now?”
Marianne hesitated.
Then she said, “Celeste has it.”
I almost laughed from shock.
“No, I don’t.”
“Yes,” Marianne said. “You do.”
I searched my memory wildly. My apartment. My jewelry box. My childhood keepsakes.
Then I remembered.
A thin gold pendant Marianne had given me when I graduated law school. Not expensive. Not flashy. A flat oval locket with no picture inside.
I wore it under my dress.
Slowly, I reached to my throat.
Grant saw.
His eyes widened.
“That necklace,” he said.
Helena whispered, “You incompetent fool.”
I pulled the chain free.
The pendant rested against my palm, warm from my skin.
I had worn my mother’s key into the Blackwood family every day.
And they had never known.
May you like
Then Marianne screamed.
The line went dead.
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