The Granddaughter Who Heard Too Much
Chapter 07 - The Granddaughter Who Heard Too Much
Lucy had grown up believing adults always knew what they were doing. The past three days taught her otherwise.
She had heard her father manufacture evidence against Daniel. She had watched her mother treat Eleanor’s fear like entertainment. Now she stood in the dark kitchen with Mrs. Alvarez, holding a ring of old brass keys and trying to control her shaking hands.
Mrs. Alvarez had worked for the Millers for twenty-eight years. Grant had dismissed her the week before, claiming the household needed “modern management.” Lucy knew the real reason: Mrs. Alvarez had seen Bianca searching Eleanor’s desk.
They climbed the service stairs and unlocked Eleanor’s room. Eleanor embraced Mrs. Alvarez, then asked them to retrieve the ledgers from behind Charles’s portrait.
The portrait had already been moved to a storage corridor near the ballroom. Lucy volunteered to go. She slipped through the house while staff prepared for the gala. Behind the frame, she found the wall safe and entered the date Eleanor had whispered: the day Miller & Sons opened its first factory.
Inside were three leather ledgers, a flash drive, and a sealed letter addressed to Daniel.
Before Lucy could close the safe, footsteps approached.
Bianca appeared at the end of the corridor.
“What are you doing?”
Lucy hid the flash drive in her sleeve and clutched the ledgers against her chest. “Grandma asked me to get these.”
Bianca crossed the corridor and reached for them. Lucy stepped back.
Then Mrs. Alvarez emerged from the service door with two security guards who had worked for Charles. Eleanor had called them using the spare phone and explained that she was being confined against her will.
Bianca’s voice rose. “I run this house now.”
“No,” Eleanor said from behind the guards. She had changed into the blue gown Bianca selected, but she wore Charles’s silver brooch at her collar. “You are standing in a house you tried to steal.”
For the first time, Bianca looked uncertain.
Eleanor took the ledgers and handed the flash drive to Mrs. Alvarez. “Get this to Nolan.”
Bianca reached for her phone, but Lucy spoke first.
“I already sent copies.”
It was a bluff. Yet Bianca believed it.
She rushed toward Grant’s office.
May you like
Eleanor watched her go and realized the gala was no longer merely a public announcement. Grant and Bianca would use the crowd as protection while they completed the transfer.
And if they discovered the black folder had been frozen, they might try something far more reckless.
