Chapter 19 - The Clue in the Housekeeping Log
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By 2:00 AM, Dominic had pulled thirty years of encrypted internal records from the Vance family vault.
We sat around the large marble dining table in the penthouse, surrounded by light-up screens, birth registries, and old financial ledgers.
"I found something, Ms. Vance," Dominic announced, zooming in on an old payroll document from thirty years ago.
"Show me," I commanded.
Dominic projected the document onto the main wall screen.
It was a confidential employment agreement for a private estate nurse named Sarah Bennett. Attached to the file was a birth record from a private hospital in Evanston, Illinois, dated twenty-eight years ago.
The child's name was listed as CLARA BENNETT.
Underneath the child's birth record was a monthly trust disbursement of fifty thousand dollars paid directly from a Vance secret foundation.
"Sarah Bennett..." I whispered, reading the name aloud. "Where have I heard that name?"
Dominic pulled up the employee registry from Adrian’s mansion in Chicago.
"Sarah Bennett was the maiden name of Mrs. Vale," Dominic revealed, his voice filled with shock. "Your housekeeper."
I gasped softly.
Mrs. Vale—the quiet, trembling housekeeper who had served tea in Adrian’s house, who had lowered her eyes when Celeste accused me, and who had held the tablet on the third morning with tears in her eyes.
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"Mrs. Vale was Sarah Bennett's sister," Dominic explained rapidly. "Which means... the young girl Mrs. Vale raised as her niece..."
"Is my father’s daughter," I finished the sentence, my heart pounding against my ribs. "The sister I never knew I had."
