Chapter 14 - MY NAME IN REBECCA’S FILE
I barely slept.
Ethan slept beside me in the downstairs guest room because Victor refused to leave him alone upstairs.
Serena remained in another room.
She had surrendered Ethan’s passport.
She also gave Victor her phone.
Not because she became trustworthy overnight.
Because she understood Graham could destroy her as easily as he had used her.
Victor’s anniversary dinner was canceled.
Monday’s trust review was canceled too.
At 6:20 the next morning, Victor opened my original employment file.
The version in his household records said:
Referred by Blackwood Household Management.
Interviewed by Serena Blackwood.
Approved by Victor Blackwood.
I stared.
“None of that happened.”
Victor looked at me.
“You never met Serena before your first day?”
“No.”
“Who interviewed you?”
“A woman named Patricia Wells.”
Victor searched.
No Patricia Wells employed by Blackwood Household Management.
I opened my old emails.
Fairmont Domestic Staffing.
The domain no longer existed.
But my acceptance message remained.
Placement:
Blackwood family.
Caregiver for male toddler.
Salary exactly matching what Victor paid.
Whoever arranged it knew the household budget.
Then Victor searched Rebecca’s USB backup—what little had synchronized into the hidden ledger files before Mason stole the physical drive.
A text index appeared.
CLAIRE BENNETT.
My name.
Document date:
Four years earlier.
I stopped breathing.
Four years ago Ethan had not been born.
I had never heard of Victor Blackwood.
“Open it.”
Victor hesitated.
“Open it.”
The file was a background report.
My age.
Education.
Employment history.
My mother’s address.
My younger brother.
Debt.
Medical insurance.
Everything.
Prepared for:
Rebecca Blackwood.
I stared.
“Why did your wife investigate me?”
Victor looked stunned.
“I don’t know.”
Another attachment.
Photograph.
Me leaving a community childcare center where I worked after college.
Taken from across the street.
Four years earlier.
My skin crawled.
“Did Rebecca know me?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I would remember.”
Then an email.
From Rebecca to Graham Mercer.
Subject:
Bennett girl.
Graham,
I confirmed her identity.
Do not contact her.
She has nothing to do with what her father did.
My heart stopped.
“My father?”
I barely remembered him.
David Bennett.
He died when I was thirteen.
He worked in accounting.
Quiet man.
Ordinary salary.
Nothing about him connected to Blackwood wealth.
Victor read the email again.
“What did your father do?”
“I don’t know.”
I searched the ledger.
BENNETT.
Seven matches.
Not me.
David Bennett Consulting.
Payments from Blackwood accounts fifteen years earlier.
My hands went cold.
“My father worked for you?”
Victor shook his head.
“I was twenty-five. My father ran most of the company then.”
Another entry.
David Bennett — forensic reconciliation.
Another.
David Bennett — confidential audit.
My father had not been an ordinary accountant.
He had audited Blackwood finances.
Then a scanned letter.
David to Rebecca.
Rebecca,
Graham knows the withdrawals were discovered.
If anything happens to me, the Mercer files are duplicated.
My mouth went dry.
My father died six months after that letter.
Officially:
Single-car accident on a rainy highway.
I remembered the phone call.
My mother dropping a plate.
The funeral.
I had never questioned it.
Why would I?
Victor whispered, “Claire.”
I couldn’t speak.
Rebecca had investigated me because my father had discovered Graham’s financial scheme.
She had written:
She has nothing to do with what her father did.
Graham apparently disagreed.
Maybe that was why I had been placed inside Blackwood Manor.
Not randomly.
Not because Serena needed a caregiver to frame.
Because Graham knew exactly who I was.
“What did my father duplicate?”
We searched.
No Mercer files.
Then another email from Rebecca.
David’s daughter must never know where he placed the archive.
If Graham learns Claire can access it, she will become leverage.
My chest tightened.
I had been leverage before I knew any of these people.
Victor looked toward Ethan sleeping nearby.
“And then you became Ethan’s caregiver.”
Not coincidence.
Someone engineered it.
Who?
Graham?
To control me?
Serena?
She had supposedly interviewed me according to the forged employment file.
But she denied knowing my background.
Then the study door opened.
Serena entered.
Victor turned sharply.
She raised both hands.
“I heard my name.”
“Did you arrange Claire’s employment?”
“No.”
“Your signature approved it.”
“Graham handled staff paperwork.”
I stared at her.
“Did you know who my father was?”
“No.”
She looked genuinely confused.
Victor showed her David’s letter.
Serena read it.
Her face changed.
“I’ve seen that name.”
“Where?”
“Graham’s office.”
My pulse jumped.
“When?”
“Last year.”
“What exactly?”
“A folder.”
“What label?”
She thought.
Then whispered:
ORCHARD.
Victor frowned.
“What does that mean?”
I knew.
My father had taken me to an orchard every September.
Apple picking.
Same small property outside Hartford.
After he died, my mother sold it.
At least, she told me she did.
I searched property records.
The orchard still existed.
Owner:
Bennett Family Preservation Trust.
Beneficiary:
Claire Bennett.
I stared.
“I own it.”
Victor looked at me.
Apparently I did.
My mother had never told me.
Or perhaps she hadn’t known.
The trust had been created by my father three months before his death.
Then I found a secured note attached to the deed.
Archive storage authorization.
Location:
Root cellar, parcel building B.
My father had hidden Graham’s duplicated files beneath an orchard I unknowingly owned.
Victor looked at the clock.
9:12 a.m.
“We go.”
Serena said, “No.”
We turned.
“Graham knows about Orchard.”
My skin went cold.
“How?”
“I saw the folder because he told Mason to retrieve something there.”
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
Yesterday.
Before the foyer incident.
Mason might already have gone.
We called the orchard caretaker number.
Disconnected.
Victor pulled up satellite and gate-camera access through the property-management account.
One camera still worked.
Live image.
A black SUV parked beside the root-cellar building.
Someone was already there.
Then another vehicle entered frame.
Graham’s silver sedan.
He had reached the archive before us.
But the camera showed something else.
A woman stepped out of the black SUV.
Not Serena.
Not anyone I recognized.
Victor did.
His face drained.
“Impossible.”
“Who is she?”
He stared at the screen.
“Rebecca’s sister.”
I frowned.
“Why is that impossible?”
“Because she disappeared the week Rebecca died.”
The woman walked toward Graham.
Then she turned toward the camera.
In her hand was a photograph.
Even through the grainy feed, I recognized the face.
Mine.
May you like
Someone connected to Ethan’s dead mother had been carrying my picture for years.
📖 Find out why Rebecca’s missing sister had my photograph at the orchard—and what she and Graham were searching for inside my father’s hidden archive in CHAPTER 15. 👇
