Chapter 2 - The Whispers in the Ledger
Gideon crouched down slowly, his knees popping in the quiet room. His pulse roared in his ears like a rising tide.
He extended a hand that shook visibly and picked up the leather-bound book. The cover was cool and slightly damp, as if it had been exposed to moisture years ago. He flipped it open.
The handwriting inside was undeniably Maren’s—tight, elegant, slanted to the right. But the entries weren't the loving, optimistic ramblings of the woman he had married eight years ago.
The first page bore a date from six years ago—just two months after their extravagant wedding at the Vance family estate in San Juan Island.
May 14th. He thinks he knows everything about the family business. He thinks Julianna is managing the trusts out of sisterly love. God forgive me, I can’t tell him. If Gideon finds out what Julianna did to the original land deeds in '18, he’ll leave. He’ll take the firm and walk away, and Julianna will destroy us both. I have to keep signing the papers. I have to keep smiling at dinner.
Gideon felt the room tilt around him. The air became thick, suffocating.
What land deeds?
He turned the page, his thumb smudging the blue ink.
August 22nd. The money isn't gone. It was never lost in the market crash like Dad told Gideon. Julianna transferred it to the offshore accounts in Grand Cayman before Dad even entered the hospice. She forced me to sign as the co-trustee. She told me if I said a word to Gideon, she would release the altered medical records from my stay at Bellevue General in '15. She would make him think I was insane. She would make sure I never got custody of the babies if I tried to leave.
Gideon dropped his head into his free hand, his mind spinning into chaotic overdrive.
Maren’s stay at Bellevue General in 2015 had been treated for severe anemia and physical exhaustion after a brutal bout with pneumonia. At least... that was what Julianna and Maren’s father had told him at the time. They had handled the hospital administration, telling Gideon to focus on his burgeoning architectural practice while they took care of Maren.
Had it all been a lie? Had his entire marriage been built on a foundation of orchestrated silence, managed by Julianna Vance from behind the scenes?
"Mr. Pierce?"
The soft, hesitant voice cut through the dark fog in his brain.
Gideon snapped the journal shut and stood up instantly, thrusting the small book into his inner coat pocket in one swift, defensive motion.
Tessa was sitting up on the bed. Her hair was somewhat disheveled, her eyes wide and startled as she looked from Gideon’s pale, furious face to the splintered wood of the bedroom door frame.
Beside her, Bennett and Eli were beginning to stir, rubbed their eyes, blinking against the dim light.
"Dad?" Bennett mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. He looked up at Tessa, then at Gideon, instantly sensing the thick tension in the room. He reached out and grabbed Tessa’s hand again, pulling it toward his chest. "Dad, don't be mad. Miss Tessa didn't mean to."
"Bennett, Eli, get out of the bed," Gideon commanded, his voice tight, lacking its usual parental gentleness. "Now."
Eli flinched, shrinking back behind Tessa. "No! Miss Tessa was reading us the story about the sea turtle! The room didn't hurt today, Dad! It didn't smell like the hospital!"
Tessa placed a calming hand on Eli’s back, her eyes fixed on Gideon. She wasn't cowering, nor was she defensive. There was an extraordinary, deep calm in her dark hazel eyes—a calm that unsettled Gideon more than tears would have.
"Boys," Tessa said softly, her voice smooth and sweet as dark honey. "Go downstairs to the kitchen. Your Aunt Julianna is down there. Ask her to help you washed up for lunch. I’ll be down in a few minutes."
"Will you stay?" Eli asked, his small voice cracking with a terrifyingly adult anxiety. "You promised you wouldn't go away like Mommy."
Tessa’s face softened, a flicker of genuine pain crossing her features. She leaned down and kissed the crown of Eli’s head. "I am right here, sweet boy. Go on."
The twins looked at Gideon, who gave a stiff nod. Reluctantly, the two little boys slid off the high mattress, their socks dragging on the hardwood floor as they hurried out of the room, casting fearful backward glances at their father.
The moment the heavy door creaked half-shut behind them, the atmosphere in the room turned arctic.
Tessa swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. She straightened her grey cardigan, adjusting her simple clothes with a quiet dignity that belied her status as a hired domestic.
"I know I broke the house rules, Mr. Pierce," she began quietly. "You don't need to yell. I'll pack my things."
"Who are you?" Gideon demanded, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides.
Tessa paused, looking at him with genuine confusion. "I'm Tessa. Tessa Vale. The agency sent me—"
"Don't play games with me!" Gideon snapped, stepping toward her until he was standing right over her. "The agency sent a housekeeper to clean my kitchen and fold my laundry. They didn't send someone who knows how to open a hidden plinth drawer in my late wife's dresser!"
Tessa’s breath caught in her throat. Her gaze lowered to the floor near the dresser, noticing the silver tin and her reading glasses lying on the dark rug.
"You were going through her things," Gideon accused, his voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of anger and betrayal. "Julianna was right. You’re not here to work, are you? What are you looking for, Tessa? Did someone hire you to come into my house?"
Tessa looked up, meeting his fierce glare without flinching. "I wasn't looking for money, Mr. Pierce. And I certainly wasn't looking to hurt your boys."
"Then why were you in this room?!" he shouted, his restraint finally snapping. "This room was locked! It has been locked for fourteen months! My children haven't set foot in here since the day their mother died! You took them in here, you slept in her bed, and you were prying into her private life!"
"I was in this room because your sons were standing outside that locked door at two o'clock this afternoon, crying so hard Eli couldn't catch his breath!" Tessa shouted back, her gentle voice suddenly cutting through his anger like a silver blade.
Gideon froze.
"They were knocking on the wood, Mr. Pierce!" Tessa continued, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, her composure finally breaking. "They were whispering through the keyhole, asking their mommy why she was hiding from them! They thought she was trapped inside! They thought if they were good enough, if they cried hard enough, she would open the door!"
Gideon felt as if he had been struck in the chest with a sledgehammer. The blood drained from his face.
"I didn't break the lock," Tessa whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. "I found the spare key in the third drawer of the hall pantry where you keep the fuses. I unlocked the door because I couldn't stand watching two five-year-old boys break their hearts against a piece of dead wood! I brought them in here so they could see that their mother wasn't trapped. I brought them in here so they could see that this room is just wood and fabric and dust—not a ghost cage!"
She took a ragged breath, pressing her palms together to stop them from shaking.
"When we came in, Bennett started hyperventilating. He was terrified. So I sat on the bed with them. I held them. I read them a book from the nightstand. And for the first time since I stepped foot in this house, those two little boys stopped shaking. They fell asleep because they were exhausted from fourteen months of carrying your grief!"
Gideon stood completely motionless, the harsh words dying in his throat.
"As for the drawer," Tessa said softly, looking at the floor. "Eli dropped his toy car under the dresser while we were reading. I reached down to pull it out, and my sleeve caught the edge of the bottom panel. It popped open. I didn't break into it. I saw the tin. I saw the journal."
She looked straight into Gideon's eyes, her gaze piercing and utterly devoid of deceit.
"I didn't read it, Mr. Pierce. I saw the initials M.V.P., I realized it was private, and I set it down. I was going to give it to you tonight. And then I sat back down on the bed, Eli put his hand on my sweater, and I fell asleep because I’ve been working sixteen-hour days trying to clean a house that feels like a tomb."
She reached down, picked up her reading glasses from the floor, and slipped them into her cardigan pocket.
"I'll go pack my bag now," she said quietly. "You don't have to worry about paying me for the week."
She turned and walked toward the doorway.
"Wait," Gideon said.
The word was barely a whisper, but it carried a weight that made Tessa stop with her hand on the brass handle of the damaged door.
May you like
Gideon reached into his coat pocket, his fingers curling around the cold leather cover of Maren's hidden journal. He thought of Julianna sitting downstairs in his kitchen, waiting like a vulture to purge this girl from his home. He thought of the land deeds, the Cayman accounts, the altered medical records, and the terrifying realization that the woman he had trusted to guide his family through their darkest hour might be the very person who had destroyed his wife.
"Don't go," Gideon said, his voice raw. "Not yet."
