Chapter 8 - THE MOTHER WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GONE.
The ballroom doors were locked while hotel security traced the message.
Preston said Rosalie’s email had been inactive for decades.
Camille claimed Mara had created the account to complete her scam.
But the message included a security phrase known only to Helena and her daughter.
When Rosalie was a child, she called the hotel’s emerald ballroom “the moon palace” because the chandeliers reflected crescent shapes across the ceiling.
The message ended with those exact words.
Helena began to cry before anyone confirmed the sender.
Mara felt hope rise inside her, but it carried twenty-six years of fear with it.
Her mother had died five years earlier—or at least Mara had been told she had.
The woman buried under the name Rose Ellis might not have been Rosalie.
Lawrence admitted that Preston handled the identification privately after the reported accident.
There had been no open casket.
No independent family member viewed the body.
The death certificate came from the same clinic network that had falsified Mara’s birth record.
Preston insisted he had protected Helena from unnecessary pain.
The phrase no longer worked.
Every time he claimed to protect someone, another life had been stolen.
Hotel security traced the email to a room on the sixth floor.
It had been reserved under Thomas Ellis’s name.
Mara’s father was believed to have died before she was born.
Walter shook his head.
Thomas had not died.
He had disappeared after trying to expose the clinic.
Before anyone could reach the elevator, the room phone rang.
Mara answered.
A woman’s voice said her childhood nickname—a name no one at the gala knew.
“Mari.”
Mara stopped breathing.
The woman continued.
“Do not let Preston open the locket.”
Everyone turned toward Helena’s hand.
The crescent locket had begun to vibrate faintly.
May you like
It was not merely jewelry.
Something had been hidden inside it.
