Part 15
PART 15
The rain finally came.
It washed over the mansion in heavy, gray sheets, blurring the windows and turning the sprawling gardens into a misty wilderness.
Inside, the lights were dim and warm.
Dominic sat in his study, staring at a silver key that lay in the center of his glass desk.
It was a small key, old and slightly tarnished, completely different from the high-tech digital security badges that unlocked every other door in the fortress.
A soft knock sounded at the door.
"Come in," Dominic said.
Clara entered, carrying a cup of hot tea. She placed it on the desk, her eyes immediately falling on the silver key.
"Noah is asleep," Clara said, sitting in the leather chair across from him. "The emotional release exhausted him. He will sleep for hours."
Dominic nodded, his hand reaching out to touch the key but not picking it up.
"Julian’s lawyers have filed an injunction," Dominic said, his voice flat, exhausted. "They are demanding a psychological evaluation of Noah by a court-appointed doctor tomorrow morning. If I refuse, they will claim I am hiding his true condition to protect my control over the Vance estate."
"Then let them evaluate him," Clara said calmly.
Dominic looked up, his eyes narrowing. "Are you insane? They will bring in someone bought by Julian. They will twist his words. They will trap him."
"Noah is stronger than you think, Dominic," Clara said, using his first name again, her voice steady. "And he is talking now. If we try to hide him, it looks like we have something to fear. But if we let the court see him—see how he responds to you, how he responds to this environment—Julian’s case falls apart."
Dominic turned the silver key over in his fingers.
"There is something else," Dominic whispered. "Julian doesn't just want the shares. He wants what Eleanor hid."
Clara remained silent, waiting for him to continue.
"The night Eleanor died, before the argument, she told me she had changed her will," Dominic said, his eyes reflecting the dim firelight. "She said she had left a final message for Noah. Something that would protect him from both of us if anything ever happened to her. I thought she was just being paranoid because of her illness. But after she passed, I searched everywhere. I couldn't find it."
He held up the silver key.
"This key was in her jewelry box. It unlocks a vintage music box that belonged to her mother. The music box is kept in the east wing... in her old painting studio. The room I locked two years ago."
Clara felt a sudden prickle of intuition. "You haven't opened that room since she died?"
"No," Dominic said, his voice dropping to a hollow murmur. "I couldn't face it. Every time I thought about going in there, the guilt... it choked me."
"Noah knows about that key," Clara said suddenly, her eyes widening as pieces of the puzzle began to click together. "The drawing he made in the dirt... the small house with the chimney... he wasn't drawing a random home, Dominic. He was drawing the old cottage Eleanor used to paint in her studio."
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Dominic stood up slowly, the key gripped tightly in his palm.
"We go tonight," he said. "Before the court doctors arrive tomorrow. We find out what Eleanor left behind."
