Chapter 3 - Blood and Billions
The neon sign of a quiet corner diner cast a warm, red glow across the booth. David watched in silent heartbreak as Lily devoured a plate of pancakes with the desperate intensity of someone who hadn't eaten a hot meal in days.
While she ate, David opened his laptop. The journalist in him was wide awake, his mind racing. He had snapped a quick photo of the elderly woman's license plate as the town car sped away. He ran the plates through a private database he used for investigative reporting.
The result popped up, and David’s blood ran cold.
The car was registered to Vanguard Holdings. And the CEO of Vanguard Holdings was Eleanor Vance.
David quickly searched her name. High-society photos flooded the screen. Eleanor Vance was a ruthless billionaire real estate tycoon. But it was the "Family" section of her Wikipedia page that made David stop breathing.
Eleanor Vance’s only daughter, Sarah Vance, tragically passed away five years ago in a private jet crash over the Atlantic. Sarah was unmarried and had no children.
David slowly looked up from the screen to the little girl scraping the last drops of syrup from her plate. No children. He looked at the torn half of the photograph resting on the table. He compared Sarah Vance's internet photos to the woman in Lily's torn picture. It was the exact same woman. The exact same smile.
"Lily," David said softly. "Do you remember your last name?"
Lily wiped her mouth with a napkin. "Mommy said our real name was a secret. But she told me... if I ever needed help, I had to find the lady with the golden bird on her gate."
"The golden bird..." David quickly typed into his search bar: Eleanor Vance estate gates.
An image loaded. It was a massive, sprawling, gothic-style mansion on the outskirts of the city. Wrought-iron gates stood at the entrance, and perched at the top of the ironwork was a massive, gilded eagle.
"Lily," David said, his voice tight with sudden adrenaline. "You said the men in white coats took your mommy. Did she look sick?"
"No," Lily said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Mommy was healthy. But grandmother said she was crazy. Grandmother said Mommy wasn't allowed to have my daddy's baby, because daddy was poor."
The entire twisted, horrifying story clicked into place in David’s mind. Eleanor Vance hadn't just lost a daughter. She had erased her. Sarah had fallen in love with someone below her social class, gotten pregnant, and Eleanor, obsessed with her legacy and fortune, had faked her own daughter’s death to hide the "disgrace."
But Sarah hadn't died in a plane crash.
"Lily," David asked, his heart pounding. "Is your mommy still alive?"
Lily hugged her doll tightly. "I don't know. But she promised she would wait for me in the dark room. The room under the greenhouse."
David slammed his laptop shut. He wasn't calling the police. A woman as powerful as Eleanor Vance owned the police. If he handed Lily over to the authorities, she would disappear back into the system, or worse, back to Eleanor.
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If they were going to save Sarah, they had to do it tonight.
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