Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN HE THOUGHT WAS DEAD
By noon, Lucien had locked the bedroom from the outside.
He called it protection.
Mara called it imprisonment.
The mansion doctor had come and gone, murmuring about concussion, shock, and disorientation. A housekeeper named Mrs. Wren brought tea and refused to meet Mara’s eyes for more than a second. Two men in dark suits appeared briefly in the hallway outside, then disappeared again.
Everyone in Blackwood mansion treated her like Celeste Arden.
Everyone except Lucien.
He treated her like a problem.
When he returned that afternoon, Mara was standing by the window, arms wrapped around herself, staring at the stone gardens below.
He closed the door behind him.
“You stopped screaming.”
She laughed bitterly.
“I didn’t know that was the standard for sanity.”
Lucien stayed near the door.
“Start from the beginning.”
Mara turned.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe my wife was found alive after a violent crash and woke up claiming to be a dead woman.”
“Formerly dead,” Mara muttered.
Something flickered in his expression. Not amusement. Maybe frustration.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She lifted her chin.
“My name is Mara Ellison. I’m twenty-nine. I was a freelance investigative journalist before someone decided I shouldn’t finish my story.”
Lucien’s face did not change.
“So tell me something only Mara Ellison would know.”
Mara stared at him.
Then she gave him her childhood address in Buffalo. The name of the parish school that expelled her in tenth grade for publishing a secret newsletter about stolen student funds. The date of her mother’s death. The scar hidden behind her left knee from falling off a pier at age eleven.
Lucien listened without interruption.
Finally, he said, “Anybody could learn facts.”
“Then why ask?”
His gaze narrowed.
“Because I need to know whether you’re delusional or dangerous.”
The answer cut deeper than she expected.
Mara looked away.
“Maybe both.”
A long silence passed.
Then Lucien crossed the room and placed something on the small table between them.
It was a newspaper.
Mara saw the headline before she wanted to.
JOURNALIST KILLED IN LATE-NIGHT CAR WRECK
There was a photograph.
Her photograph.
She looked younger in it than she had felt in years.
Mara stared until the words blurred.
Lucien’s voice came lower now, less sharp.
“The article said you were found near the passenger side after the car went through the barrier.”
Mara swallowed.
“Because I was with Celeste.”
He studied her face—Celeste’s face, she corrected herself bitterly.
“Why?”
“Because your wife called me.”
His jaw tightened.
“My wife hated journalists.”
“She hated the kind who sold people. I don’t.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Mara exhaled slowly.
The truth felt dangerous now, but not saying it felt worse.
“Celeste contacted me three weeks ago,” she said. “From an untraceable number. She told me she found documents proving someone inside Blackwood was stealing from the Arden charitable trusts.”
Lucien said nothing.
“She thought it was bigger than fraud,” Mara continued. “She said people had already lied about one death. She was afraid she’d be next.”
Something cold entered his eyes.
“And she didn’t tell me.”
Mara watched him carefully.
“Maybe she didn’t know if she could trust you.”
His expression darkened, but he didn’t deny it.
“She arranged one meeting with me in the city,” Mara said. “Short. Nervous. She gave me copies of ledgers and told me to wait. Then last night she called again. Said she had enough proof now. Said she wanted to meet before dawn and leave Blackwood for good.”
Lucien went still.
“Leave Blackwood?”
“She said if she stayed until morning, she might not survive it.”
For the first time, real emotion cracked through his control.
Not panic.
Pain.
Mara saw it and suddenly remembered the frightened way Celeste had said his name on that first rainy meeting—not with hatred, but with regret.
Lucien turned away, as if he regretted letting her see anything.
Then he said, “The police think the road was slick.”
“The police are wrong.”
“How do you know the memory is hers and not something your own mind invented?”
“Because I remember sitting in the passenger seat before the impact,” Mara said. “I remember the smell of her perfume. I remember Celeste saying, ‘If I can’t get this to Lucien, at least get it out.’”
Lucien spun back toward her.
“What?”
Mara frowned.
The memory came in flashes, not full scenes.
“I think she meant the evidence. Or maybe the truth. I don’t know.”
Lucien stared at her for a long moment.
Then he reached inside his coat and pulled out a small silver key.
“I found this in the pocket of your coat after the accident. Celeste’s coat.”
He held it out.
Mara took it.
A memory sparked instantly—Celeste’s hand, trembling, placing the key into a small carved compartment inside the frame of the gold mirror.
Mara inhaled sharply.
Lucien noticed.
“What is it?”
She looked at the mirror across the room.
“There’s something hidden in there.”
He followed her gaze.
Within moments they had moved the heavy frame just far enough to reveal a tiny lock behind the carved roses. Mara’s fingers shook as she slid the key inside.
The compartment opened.
Inside lay a folded note and a second phone.
Lucien snatched up the note first.
He unfolded it.
Read.
Then read again, slower.
Mara watched his face go white.
“What?”
Lucien handed the paper to her.
The handwriting was elegant, urgent, unmistakably feminine.
If you are reading this, I was right.
Someone meant to stop me before morning.
If Lucien finds this, tell him I was trying to protect him.
If Mara finds this, I’m sorry.
Mara’s breath left her.
Below the note was a final line.
Do not trust Edwin.
Lucien’s hand tightened around the hidden phone.
“Edwin Arden,” he said quietly. “Celeste’s uncle.”
Then he looked up, and the suspicion in his face changed at last—not to trust, not yet, but to something far more dangerous.
Belief.
Because if Celeste had hidden that note before the crash, then Mara was telling the truth about one thing for certain.
May you like
Someone inside Blackwood mansion had been lying long before she woke in Celeste’s skin.
And now the two of them had just opened the first door that liar never meant anyone to find.
