Chapter 6 - the Hudson Valley estate
Adrien refused to wait for Marcus’s dawn deadline. At midnight, accompanied by four black SUVs, Adrien drove Lena north along the winding, fog-covered roads of the Hudson Valley toward the abandoned Viscari country estate.
"Why are we here?" Lena asked, looking at the gothic wrought-iron gates swinging open.
"If Marcus has pages of Elena’s diary, he didn't find them in the city," Adrien said, his hands steady on the steering wheel. "This is where Elena spent her last summer before she disappeared. My father sealed the estate after she vanished, but if she left a trail, it’s inside."
The massive manor was frozen in time, dust covers draping grand furniture beneath crystal chandeliers.
Adrien led Lena up the curved staircase into a sunroom at the end of the east wing. A pale blue bedroom overlooked the dead gardens.
Lena walked inside and stopped dead in her tracks. Her hand went to her chest.
"I know this room," she whispered.
Adrien turned sharply. "You were never here. Elena had you in Boston two years after she left."
"No," Lena murmured, walking toward a vintage wooden music box on the vanity. She turned the silver key. A soft, melancholic melody filled the dusty air—the exact lullaby her mother used to sing to her before she died. "She brought me here once. I was four years old. It was dark, and she was crying. She hid something in the floorboards beneath the wardrobe."
Marco quickly pulled a utility knife and pried up the loose oak plank beneath the wardrobe.
Inside was a small metal lockbox.
Marco handed it to Adrien, who used a heavy pocketknife to snap the rusted latch.
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Inside was a bundle of letters tied with black ribbon, and a handwritten note on Elena’s personal stationery dated the night of her disappearance.
Adrien read the final line aloud: *"If you are reading this, Adrien, know that Julian Blake didn't act alone. The order to erase my child came from inside our own blood."*
