Chapter 6 - BLACKWOOD HOUSE
Blackwood House looked like the kind of place built by men who expected their descendants to become problems.
Stone walls.
Iron gates.
Tall windows reflecting a gray Wisconsin sky.
The estate sat above Lake Geneva, three hours from Chicago if traffic cooperated and apparently several decades behind modern ideas about emotional health.
Rachel stared through the windshield.
“This is where your husband grew up?”
“Partly.”
“And you never came here?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Ethan said he hated it.”
Marcus, driving, said, “Reasonable.”
I looked at him.
“You’ve been?”
“Many times.”
“And?”
“He’s right.”
That was not reassuring.
Ethan’s car was already parked near the entrance when we arrived.
He stood on the front steps alone.
No security beside him.
No suit.
Dark sweater. Black coat. Hands in his pockets.
For one dangerous second, I remembered why I had married him.
Not the empire.
Not the name.
Not the money.
Him.
There had been a version of Ethan before fear, control, and marriage turned everything into negotiations.
A man who once drove three hours in the snow because I mentioned I had never seen Lake Michigan freeze near the shore.
A man who knew exactly how I liked coffee.
A man who danced badly in my kitchen when he thought nobody was watching.
That man had not disappeared.
He had simply become harder to find.
Ethan walked toward the car.
I got out.
He stopped six feet away.
Good.
He was learning.
“How’s Daniel?”
“Released tomorrow.”
“Good.”
His eyes moved over me.
Not possessive.
Checking.
I recognized it anyway.
“I’m fine.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were about to.”
“Yes.”
Rachel got out.
“Hi, Ethan.”
“Rachel.”
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Marcus hid a smile.
We went inside.
Blackwood House was enormous and cold despite three fireplaces burning.
Portraits lined the main hall.
Blackwood men with severe faces.
Blackwood women wearing jewelry heavy enough to cause structural damage.
Near the staircase hung a portrait of Ethan at twelve.
I stopped.
He was thin.
Too serious.
Already wearing a suit.
“You looked miserable.”
“I was.”
“Who makes a twelve-year-old wear that?”
“My grandmother.”
“Catherine.”
“Yes.”
Rachel leaned closer to the portrait.
“You had ears.”
Ethan stared at her.
“I still have ears.”
“Not like those.”
I laughed.
He looked at me.
For one second his expression softened.
Then he turned away.
“Safe is upstairs.”
We followed him into Catherine Blackwood’s old bedroom.
The safe was built behind a panel beside the fireplace.
Open.
Empty.
Ethan crouched.
“The lining had been replaced. I pulled it.”
He showed me the photograph.
I was eight years old.
Standing outside Lincoln Park Zoo.
Holding cotton candy.
My mother beside me.
I remembered the day.
Dad had been working.
Mom took me because I had earned an A on a math test.
“What is my mother looking at?” I asked.
The photograph had been taken from across the path.
Mom wasn’t looking at the camera.
She was staring past it.
Scared.
On the back, someone had written:
ANNA STILL HAS IT. GIRL MAY KNOW LATER.
Rachel whispered, “That is deeply creepy.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“Catherine wrote in block letters when she wanted staff to read instructions.”
“You recognize the handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“So your grandmother had me watched.”
“At least once.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked around the room.
Catherine’s room.
Her safe.
Her photograph.
“Your grandmother knew about the ledger.”
“Probably.”
“Was she working with Conrad?”
Ethan did not answer.
Marcus did.
“I always suspected it.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You never said that.”
“You were eighteen when she died.”
“Nineteen.”
“Exactly.”
“What did you suspect?”
Marcus leaned against the wall.
“Catherine never believed Michael was strong enough to lead. She preferred Conrad.”
Ethan’s expression went cold.
“My father said she accepted the outcome.”
“Your father said many things to keep the family together.”
I laughed without humor.
“Another generational tradition.”
Ethan did not disagree.
We searched the room.
Every drawer.
Every cabinet.
Every book.
Nothing.
Then Rachel noticed the fireplace.
“Why is one tile different?”
We looked.
Near the edge of the hearth, one black tile was slightly lighter.
Ethan knelt.
Pressed it.
Nothing.
Marcus pulled out a pocketknife.
“Do rich families ever use normal storage?”
“No,” I said. “Apparently not.”
The tile came free.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Inside sat a cassette tape.
A key.
And a letter.
Ethan picked up the envelope.
His name was written across it.
ETHAN.
He froze.
“My father’s handwriting.”
I stepped back.
“Open it.”
He did.
The paper shook once in his hand.
I noticed.
He read silently.
Then stopped.
“What?”
His jaw tightened.
“Read it.”
He looked at me.
Then began.
Ethan,
If you are reading this, then either I am dead or I finally found the courage to tell you the truth and failed to do it properly.
Conrad did not die in the warehouse fire.
I knew.
I let the world believe he did because the alternative would have exposed everything our family had built.
That was my first unforgivable mistake.
My second was teaching you that strength means control.
I watched you grow into the man I trained you to become and told myself I was proud.
I should have been afraid.
Ethan stopped.
The room had gone completely quiet.
I saw the words hit him physically.
“Keep going,” he said to himself.
He read.
If you ever love someone, do not make the mistake I made with Anna Bennett.
Do not confuse providing for a woman with listening to her.
Do not decide what she needs and call it protection.
Anna left me because I believed I could keep her by solving every problem except the one she asked me to see.
I hope you are smarter than I was.
Ethan lowered the letter.
Nobody spoke.
I stared at him.
His father had written our marriage decades before it happened.
Not literally.
But close enough to hurt.
Rachel quietly walked out.
Marcus followed.
They shut the door.
Ethan looked at the paper.
“My father knew.”
“About us?”
“No.”
He laughed once, painfully.
“About me.”
I sat on the edge of the bed.
“You were raised to be like him.”
“That is not an excuse.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
He looked at me.
“I cheated before our wedding.”
“Yes.”
“I let Vanessa stay in my life because it was convenient.”
“Yes.”
“I used your father’s bills whenever I wanted to end an argument.”
“Yes.”
Each answer landed.
I did not soften them.
He deserved the truth.
“I ignored fifteen calls.”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
“I was on a beach when Thomas died.”
“Yes.”
“I cannot make any of that unhappen.”
“No.”
He closed his eyes.
“I don’t know what to do with that.”
I thought about Dad’s death certificate.
The way my hand stayed steady.
“You live with it.”
His eyes opened.
“Is that all?”
“Sometimes consequences don’t become useful lessons. Sometimes they just hurt.”
He nodded.
“I’m starting to understand.”
The cassette player in the room’s old cabinet still worked.
We inserted the tape.
Michael Blackwood’s voice filled the room.
Ethan went still.
“Catherine, if you find this, I know what you did.”
Static.
“You helped Conrad survive the fire. You moved him through the Canadian route. You told him Anna had copied the ledger.”
I looked at Ethan.
His face had emptied.
The tape continued.
“I moved the ledger before you reached the safe. You will never find it without Anna’s key. And Anna will never give it to you.”
A woman’s voice.
Catherine.
“You always were weak where that woman was concerned.”
Michael answered.
“No. I was weak when I chose this family over doing what was right.”
Static.
Then:
“If Conrad comes back, the ledger goes to federal authorities.”
Catherine laughed.
“With whose help?”
“Thomas Bennett.”
My breath stopped.
Dad.
Ethan looked at me.
The recording continued.
“And if Thomas is gone?”
“Claire.”
I froze.
Catherine’s voice sharpened.
“The girl?”
“Anna built the final key around her.”
“She’s a child.”
“For now.”
The tape clicked off.
My skin prickled.
Ethan rewound.
Listened again.
Nothing more.
“Final key around me.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I stood and walked to the window.
Lake Geneva spread below us.
Winter water.
Bare trees.
A life built on secrets.
Ethan came closer, but stopped several feet away.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Your mother left school things in that box.”
“The red notebook.”
“Also report cards.”
I turned.
“So?”
“Your mother was an accountant.”
“Yes.”
“She used numbers.”
“Yes.”
“You said Daniel mentioned your birthday.”
My pulse changed.
“Birthday plus something only Mom and I shared.”
I thought of childhood.
Songs.
Books.
School.
She had loved puzzles.
Every birthday, she hid my present somewhere in the house and left clues.
Numbers.
Riddles.
“Birthdays.”
“What?”
“Mom made scavenger hunts.”
Ethan’s focus sharpened.
“How did she encode clues?”
“Usually simple substitution.”
“Letters to numbers?”
“Yes.”
I grabbed the red notebook.
Near the back were entries that made no sense.
12-3-1.
7-14-4.
9-2-12.
Not financial amounts.
Coordinates?
I looked at Ethan.
“Do you have paper?”
He handed me a legal pad.
I wrote my birthday.
April 16, 1993.
4-16-93.
Then the numbers.
Rachel came back in.
“What are we doing?”
“Possibly decrypting international organized crime using childhood birthday games.”
“Normal.”
We worked for an hour.
Nothing.
Then I remembered Mom never used calendar months directly.
She used books.
“Favorite book,” I said.
“What?”
“My birthday scavenger hunts always started with a book.”
“Which one?”
I laughed despite myself.
“Charlotte’s Web.”
Rachel stared.
“The criminal empire falls to a spider?”
“Maybe.”
Ethan found an old library downstairs.
Of course it contained a first edition.
Rich people are ridiculous.
I used chapter numbers and line counts.
The sequences began producing letters.
S.
T.
A.
I worked faster.
T.
I.
O.
N.
Station.
Next set.
N.
I.
N.
E.
Station Nine.
Marcus went still.
“What?”
“Blackwood Shipping used numbered rail depots before container trucking expanded.”
“Where was Station Nine?”
Ethan answered.
“Chicago.”
“Still exists?”
“No.”
Marcus corrected him.
“Building exists.”
We looked at him.
“South Side warehouse district. It’s been abandoned twenty years.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
We all stared.
I answered on speaker.
Conrad.
“You’re clever like Anna.”
My blood chilled.
“You’re listening?”
“Not anymore.”
Ethan looked around.
Security breach.
Conrad continued.
“Station Nine won’t help you.”
I kept my voice steady.
“Then why call?”
“To tell you Ethan lied.”
Beside me, Ethan did not move.
“About what?”
“Miami.”
My stomach turned.
“He says he didn’t sleep with Vanessa.”
Ethan’s face went hard.
Conrad laughed.
“Ask him what happened Sunday night.”
I looked at Ethan.
He went still.
“What happened Sunday night?”
His silence answered before words did.
My heart sank.
“Ethan.”
He looked at me.
And for the first time since I came back to Chicago, I saw fear.
Not of Conrad.
Of me.
Conrad laughed softly through the phone.
“Good luck with the divorce.”
The call ended.
May you like
I stared at my husband.
“What happened Sunday night?”
