Lillian Blackwood’s Last Night
Chapter 04 - Lillian Blackwood’s Last Night
Eleven years earlier, Lillian Blackwood served as financial director of the family foundation.
She discovered money moving from children’s education accounts into shell companies.
Adrian believed the transfers were accounting errors.
Their father, Charles Blackwood, insisted on handling the matter privately.
Then Lillian vanished.
Her car was found near a mountain bridge.
Police concluded she drove into the river, though no vehicle or body was recovered.
Adrian spent years searching.
Beatrice Voss had worked as Charles’s private secretary at the time.
She told investigators Lillian seemed unstable and planned to flee.
Now Adrian reopened the old files.
The final security footage showed Lillian leaving Blackwood Manor carrying the silver locket and a newborn carrier.
No official record ever mentioned a baby.
Beatrice said the carrier contained documents.
Emma watched the video from the library.
“That’s my mother.”
Adrian sat beside her.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you find us?”
“I looked in the places adults told me were true.”
Emma considered this.
“My mother said rich people can buy better lies.”
Adrian did not defend his family.
The brass key opened a steel cabinet behind Charles Blackwood’s portrait.
Inside were foundation ledgers, adoption records, and a cassette recorder.
The first tape carried Lillian’s voice.
“If Adrian hears this, Father has chosen the company over the truth.”
She explained that Charles and Beatrice diverted charity funds through fake foster homes. Children existed only on paper while payments flowed into private accounts.
Lillian planned to report them.
She had also learned she was pregnant after a brief marriage her father refused to recognize.
The baby was Emma.
The recording ended with tires outside Lillian’s safe house and a frightened whisper:
“Beatrice found us.”
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Emma looked toward the closed library doors.
The woman who had forced her to clean the mansion had been searching for her since birth.
