Chapter 3 - The Funeral With No Body
Lily admitted she had stood outside a small church while strangers carried a sealed coffin past her.
No one allowed her to view Elena’s body.
A county social worker told Lily her mother died in a motel fire and that the Blackwoods had refused responsibility for her.
Margaret spoke with practiced sorrow.
“Elena abandoned this family, then abandoned her daughter.”
Lily’s fists tightened.
“She pushed me through a bathroom window before the smoke reached our room.”
Alexander turned toward Conrad.
“The report said Elena was found inside.”
Conrad replied, “Children misunderstand trauma.”
Lily faced him.
“Adults with expensive lawyers call children confused whenever the truth threatens their salary.”
Alexander inserted the memory card into the foyer screen.
The final video had been recorded minutes before the fire.
Elena held up an original payroll ledger and said Margaret planned to seize Lily before her tenth birthday.
At ten, Lily would inherit the voting rights of every worker whose shares had been stolen.
Margaret dismissed the claim.
“Hotel maids and groundskeepers cannot govern a national estate.”
A housekeeper named Rosa stepped from the service corridor.
“They governed your kitchens, vineyards, accounts and dying parents.”
She revealed that Blackwood employees had paid into the ownership fund for forty years.
Their pensions disappeared while the family expanded the château.
Alexander demanded that the county reopen Elena’s death.
Then Rosa examined the funeral certificate.
The cremation authorization carried Alexander’s signature.
Lily looked at him in horror.
“You signed without seeing her?”
Alexander remembered signing dozens of documents after Margaret told him Elena had died.
May you like
Before he could answer, the brass key unlocked a hidden drawer beneath the staircase.
Inside was Elena’s wedding ring—still wet with fresh blood-colored paint—and a live tracking device moving beneath the mansion.
