Chapter 3 - The Sister Richard Invented
Eleanor did not sleep.
At dawn, The Sovereign still sat under low gray clouds while florists dismantled Richard Vale’s memorial downstairs.
His enormous portrait remained on the salon wall.
Eleanor hated looking at it.
Maya had taken a guest cabin only because heavy weather made a late-night departure difficult.
Neither woman trusted the other.
But neither wanted Victor out of sight.
Victor left at 6:10 a.m. with his own attorney.
Before stepping onto the dock, he told Eleanor:
“Your father protected this family from things you never understood.”
Eleanor answered, “He protected himself.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“You may discover the difference is more expensive than you think.”
He left.
Maya was standing behind Eleanor.
“That sounded like a threat.”
“It was.”
“Does he threaten everyone like a banker?”
Eleanor almost smiled.
Almost.
Instead she said, “Come with me.”
Her private study aboard the yacht contained family photographs Richard had displayed selectively.
Sailing trophies.
Presidential handshakes.
Eleanor graduating from Yale.
Eleanor becoming CEO.
There were no photographs of Anna after age twenty.
Eleanor opened a drawer.
At the back lay a small brass compass.
Maya stared.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
E.V. was engraved on the lid.
Eleanor placed it beside Anna’s silver compass.
“They were a pair.”
Maya touched neither.
“What was she like?”
The question unsettled Eleanor.
“You know what she was like.”
“I know my mother.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“No.”
Maya shook her head.
“I knew Anna Mercer. She made cheap coffee. She hated horror movies. She lied about liking my violin concerts because I was terrible.”
Her voice softened.
“I don’t know who she was here.”
Eleanor sat.
“She climbed everything.”
“What?”
“Trees. Rigging. Roofs. Father used to say Anna had no instinct for gravity.”
A memory escaped before Eleanor could stop it.
Anna at fourteen, standing barefoot on the boom of a sailboat while Richard shouted from shore.
Maya smiled.
“She climbed our garage too.”
The resemblance hurt.
Eleanor looked at the folder.
“Show me everything.”
Maya hesitated.
“Why?”
“Because I want the truth.”
“You wanted security to throw me off the yacht last night.”
“That was before I heard Victor planning forgery.”
“You still believed Richard after I showed you the document.”
“He was my father.”
“He was hers too.”
Eleanor accepted the rebuke.
“Show me.”
Maya opened the folder.
Inside were letters.
Photographs.
Copies of legal filings.
Bank correspondence.
Hospital records.
A union grievance bearing Thomas Mercer’s name.
And Anna’s handwritten notes.
Eleanor picked up a photograph of Anna and Thomas sitting on a curb outside a small apartment.
Anna was visibly pregnant.
“When was this?”
“Three months after she left.”
“Was thrown out,” Eleanor corrected herself.
Maya noticed.
“Yes.”
“How did they live?”
“Dad worked wherever anyone would hire him.”
“He worked for Vale Shipyards.”
“Until Richard blacklisted him.”
Eleanor looked sharply at her.
“That is impossible.”
Maya slid over a personnel notice.
TERMINATION FOR SUSPECTED PROPERTY THEFT.
Thomas Mercer had allegedly stolen copper fittings.
“No charges?” Eleanor asked.
“None.”
“Why?”
“Because there was no theft.”
“Then why was he terminated?”
“Because he married Anna.”
Eleanor looked at the signature.
Victor Shaw.
Approved termination.
Her stomach turned.
Maya continued.
“Dad could barely find union work on the coast after that. Richard’s people made calls.”
“Why didn’t Thomas sue?”
“He did.”
“What happened?”
“His complaint disappeared after a settlement conference.”
“How much?”
“Nothing.”
Eleanor frowned.
Maya tapped the file.
“His lawyer withdrew.”
A pattern.
Every road toward the truth seemed to end at Victor.
Eleanor picked up another letter.
This one was from herself.
She recognized the stationery.
She recognized the handwriting.
Anna,
You made your choice. Do not ask Father for money now that the adventure has become difficult. If you cared about this family, you would not have humiliated us.
Please stop contacting me.
Eleanor
Her hands began shaking.
“I wrote this.”
Maya said nothing.
“I remember.”
Her voice grew smaller.
“Father told me Anna wanted money.”
“She wanted to speak to you.”
Eleanor looked at Maya.
“I didn’t know.”
Maya’s expression hardened.
“My mother knew you wrote it.”
There was no defense.
Eleanor placed the letter down.
“I hurt her.”
“Yes.”
“I believed a lie.”
“You still wrote the words.”
“Yes.”
Maya seemed surprised by the admission.
Eleanor looked toward the rain.
“What did she say about me?”
“Depends when.”
“Near the end.”
Maya was silent for a long time.
“She said, ‘Your aunt isn’t cruel. Cruel people enjoy cruelty. Eleanor enjoys certainty.’”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
That sounded exactly like Anna.
Maya pulled out another envelope.
“She told me to give you this only if you denied everything.”
“I denied everything.”
“You did.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me?”
“I was angry.”
Honesty met honesty.
Maya handed it over.
Eleanor opened the envelope.
Inside was one sheet in Anna’s handwriting.
Eleanor,
If you are reading this, Father is probably dead, because I made Maya promise never to go near him while he lived.
I need you to know one thing before you decide what kind of liar I was.
The night he threw me out, he told me you had agreed.
He said you had signed as witness because you believed I had disgraced the family.
I believed him too.
For years, I hated you for something you never did.
Maybe that was his greatest victory.
Eleanor stopped.
Below it Anna had written:
If you want to know why he needed us divided, find Mother’s original trust.
Eleanor reread the sentence.
“Our mother?”
Maya nodded.
“Anna thought Helena’s estate was the beginning.”
Helena Vale had died when Eleanor was twenty-six and Anna twenty-three.
A brain aneurysm.
Sudden.
Richard had handled the estate.
Eleanor remembered being told Helena had left everything to Richard.
Maya looked toward the two compasses.
“My mother believed your father didn’t steal her inheritance in 1994.”
Eleanor lifted her eyes.
“She thought he stole it years earlier.”
Maya nodded.
May you like
“And if she was right, the document with your forged signature wasn’t the first lie.”
It was merely the cover.
