Gerald sat down because his legs would no longer hold him.
Julian spoke first.
“This is becoming an exercise in deliberate emotional injury.”
“Where is he?” Elena asked.
“You need to understand the circumstances,” Gerald said.
“No. You need to tell me where my father is.”
The old lawyer looked at Eleanor.
Then at Maxwell.
“At Blackwater Prison.”
Eleanor shook her head.
Once.
Again.
“No.”
“He was convicted the following year.”
“Of stealing the instruments?” Maxwell asked.
Gerald’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Elena heard the rain. Somewhere below them, a wedding musician tested a microphone, unaware that the celebration had ended.
Gerald said, “Murder.”
“Whose murder?”
He looked at the violin.
Then at Elena’s face.
And she understood before he spoke.
“Yours.”
The room seemed to drop beneath her.
She reached for the piano and missed.
Maxwell caught her elbow.
For twenty-six years, a man had been imprisoned for killing her.
For twenty-six years, she had eaten breakfast, learned scales, fallen in love once, buried Samuel, applied for work, and cleaned this house.
Her father had lived through every one of those days behind a locked door.
Because the world believed she was dead.
“No body,” Maxwell said.
His voice sounded strange, distant.
“There was no body?”
Gerald shook his head.
“The fire destroyed much of the carriage house. There were fragments of the baby’s clothing. Blood on Gabriel’s shirt. Witness testimony about threats.”
“Whose testimony?”
Julian stared at the extinguished candles lining the mantel.
“An employee who has since died,” Gerald replied. “And a statement attributed to Eleanor.”
“I never gave a statement.”
“I know.”
Eleanor looked as though he had struck her.
Gerald removed another document from the folder.
A typed account.
A signature.
Eleanor’s name.
“It said Gabriel threatened to kill the child if she left him,” he explained. “It said he had become violent.”
Eleanor pushed it away.
“He never raised his voice to me.”
“They had medical records of your injuries.”
“Julian did that.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
Her voice rose.
For the first time, she sounded neither frail nor confused.
“You know everything, Gerald. What did you do with knowing?”
He bowed his head.
Julian’s eyes shifted toward the door.
Maxwell noticed.
“The police are coming,” he said. “The housekeeper called while we were looking for candles.”
Julian looked back at him.
“You have no idea what you’re destroying.”
Maxwell glanced at Elena, then at his mother.
“I’m beginning to understand what you preserved.”
Gerald had been appointed to represent Gabriel.
At first, he believed he could dismantle the case.
The physical evidence was weak. The fire investigation had been rushed. Eleanor was supposedly too unwell to appear in court, and every request to speak with her was refused.
