Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE THAT REMEMBEREDThat afternoon, the mansion felt different.
The ballroom had been cleaned.
The broken glass was gone.
The stains had disappeared.
But Graham couldn't forget the place where his mother had fallen to her knees.
He walked through the older wing of the estate.
Few people ever entered it.
Dark wood.
Dusty portraits.
Locked doors.
The house seemed to carry memories Graham had never bothered to ask about.
Then he found Marianne standing before a pair of carved walnut doors.
Her fingers rested against the wood.
She looked frightened.
"Mom?"
She turned.
For a second, Graham saw something he had never seen in her face before.
Recognition.
Not of the room.
Of the past.
"You've been here before."
"I walked through this wing after you bought the house."
"That's not what I meant."
Silence.
Graham stepped closer.
"Sloane knew something."
Marianne closed her eyes.
"There are things about your childhood I wanted you to forget."
"Why?"
"Because children inherit more than money."
She looked at him.
"They inherit their parents' enemies."
Graham's blood ran cold.
Before he could ask another question, his attorney called.
The property records had arrived.
Graham opened the file.
The mansion had once belonged to a family named Bellamy.
One name stopped him.
August Bellamy.
Marianne saw it.
Her face drained of color.
"Where did you get that?"
"The property records."
She whispered:
"Your father worked for him."
Graham stared.
His father had always been a shadow in his childhood.
A name.
A few photographs.
A story about illness.
Nothing more.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Marianne looked toward the dark hallway.
"Because your father learned something about powerful people."
"What?"
May you like
She swallowed.
"That sometimes the most dangerous thing a man can possess is the truth."
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