Chapter 5 - Ghosts of the Past
For the next three days, the Blackwell Manor was locked down in a state of quiet recovery. While my men dismantled Karen Vance’s network brick by brick, securing every asset Grace had left behind and turning Karen over to federal authorities on charges of child abuse, extortion, and kidnapping, my world shrunk down to the walls of my home.
Emma was far more fragile than I had initially realized. She flinched whenever a door slammed, hid under the bed whenever a male guard walked down the hallway, and refused to sleep without a light on.
But Lily never left her side.
"Look, Emma," Lily said on Thursday morning, spreading dozens of dresses across Emma’s room. "Daddy had the shop bring all these! This blue one has sparkles! It makes you look like a princess!"
Emma sat on the edge of the large bed, her fingers touching the soft silk tentatively. "Is it really for me?"
"Everything here is for you," I said, walking into the room with a tray of fresh pancakes. "If you don't like blue, we can get red, green, yellow—whatever color you want."
Emma looked up at me, her large green eyes shimmering. "Aunt Karen said I was bad. She said... she said Mommy died because I was born."
My breath caught in my throat. The sheer malice required to poison a child’s mind like that was beyond forgiveness. I set the tray down and sat beside her on the bed, taking her tiny hands in mine.
"Listen to me very carefully, Emma," I said, my voice steady and iron-firm. "Your mother loved you more than her own life. She spent every single day trying to protect you. You are not bad. You are a miracle. You and Lily are the best things that ever happened to me and your mother."
"Then why did Mommy leave me?" Emma sniffled, tears finally overflowing.
"She didn't leave you by choice," I explained gently. "Bad people took you away before I could stop them. But your mother never forgot you. She left that letter in Barnaby so I could find you. She brought you back to me."
Emma looked at the dirty, worn-out plush rabbit resting on her pillow. "Mommy gave me Barnaby. She told me to hold him whenever I was scared."
"And now you don't have to hold him alone," Lily chimed in, climbing onto the bed and wrapping her arms around Emma from behind. "You have me! And Daddy! And Victor! And a giant dog if Daddy lets us get one!"
Emma let out a tiny, breathless laugh—the very first sound of true joy I had heard from her. It filled the large, quiet room like sunlight breaking through dark storm clouds.
Later that afternoon, I led both girls down the grand hallway toward a door that had remained locked for seven long years: Grace’s personal art studio.
I took a deep breath, inserted the key, and pushed the heavy oak door open.
The room had been preserved exactly as Grace left it. Dust motes danced in the streams of sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Easels, oil paints, and finished canvases lined the walls.
Emma stopped dead in her tracks, staring at a massive painting mounted in the center of the room.
It was a painting of two tiny baby girls sleeping side by side in a basket of light, surrounded by white roses. Above them, an angel with Grace’s face reached down, holding a golden thread that bound the two babies together.
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"Mommy painted this," Emma whispered, taking a slow step toward it.
"She painted it right before she passed," I said, standing behind my daughters. "I never understood why she painted two babies back then. I thought it was just a mother’s dream. Now I know... she was painting her promise that one day, you two would be together."
