The Fall in the East Hall
Chapter 01 - The Fall in the East Hall
The morning sun poured through the tall windows of Blackwood Manor, turning the marble floor into a mirror. At the center of the great hall stood Nora Blackwood, eight months pregnant, one hand resting protectively over her stomach. Across from her was her mother-in-law, Evelyn, dressed in black as if she had come to deliver a verdict rather than welcome a daughter home.
For weeks, Nora had received unsigned letters warning her not to sign any documents concerning the Blackwood family trust. She had hidden them from her husband, Adrian, because he was already overwhelmed by the upcoming birth and a financial crisis at the family foundation. That morning, Evelyn summoned her to the manor and placed a thick folder on the table.
“Sign these before the baby is born,” Evelyn said. “It will protect the family.”
Nora opened the folder and felt the room tilt. The papers named Evelyn temporary guardian of the baby and transferred Nora’s voting shares in Blackwood Medical to an emergency trust. At the bottom of every page was a signature that looked almost exactly like Nora’s.
“I never agreed to this.”
Evelyn’s expression remained unreadable. “Then someone wants the world to believe you did.”
A sharp pain tightened across Nora’s abdomen. She reached for the railing, but her fingers slipped. Adrian appeared at the far end of the hall just as she staggered backward. He ran, catching her moments before her head struck the floor.
As Nora fell, a silver medical injector rolled from beneath Evelyn’s coat and stopped beside Adrian’s knee.
His face changed.
The injector carried the logo of Blackwood Medical, but the dosage label had been scratched away. Nora recognized it immediately. It matched the prenatal treatment her private physician had prescribed—except her own injector had disappeared two days earlier.
Adrian looked up at his mother. “Why do you have this?”
Evelyn did not answer. She stared toward the upper balcony, where a shadow moved behind the curtains.
Then Nora whispered, “Someone has been changing my medication.”
Her eyes closed.
Adrian shouted for an ambulance while Evelyn picked up the injector with a handkerchief. Her voice, calm until that moment, finally broke.
“This is why I brought her here,” she said. “I needed the person watching us to believe she had signed the papers.”
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A door slammed somewhere above them.
Evelyn looked at her son. “If we do not find out who left this in Nora’s room, your wife and child may not survive the week.”
