Chapter 4 - Ghosts in the Marble Hall
The drive from Manhattan to the Connecticut estate usually took an hour and fifteen minutes under normal conditions. Richard’s driver made it in thirty-eight minutes, tearing through the blinding storm with blue security strobes flashing behind the front grille of the black SUV.
Inside the vehicle, the silence was suffocating.
Richard sat with his arm wrapped tightly around Catherine, who stared out the tinted window with blank, hollow eyes. Her body shook with silent, rhythmic tremors. For eight years, Richard had known his wife as a quiet, elegant, slightly distant woman—a woman who threw herself into high-society charity work but kept a heavy, impenetrable vault around her past.
He knew she came from old money in East Asia—the Lin dynasty, a mega-conglomerate that handled international shipping and private banking. He knew her entire family had died or scattered in a brutal corporate coup eight years ago, forcing her to flee to America under an altered name before they met. But she had never spoken the details. She had locked that nightmare away to protect Mia, to protect Richard, and to survive.
Now, that locked vault had just been blown wide open by a six-year-old girl and a wet piece of jade.
When the SUV screeched to a halt in the circular driveway of the Hartford estate, two ambulances and three police cruisers were already parked outside, their red and red lights flashing against the wet white marble pillars of the house.
Richard pushed the door open and sprinted through the pouring rain, Catherine right on his heels.
Inside, the foyer was a chaotic scene of paramedics, police officers, and crying household staff. A paramedic was coming down the grand stairs holding a small, insulated thermal bassinet.
"Is he okay?!" Catherine screamed, pushing past a police officer who tried to block her path. "Is the baby okay?!"
"Ma'am, please stand back—" the officer began.
"That is my wife!" Richard roared, stepping up beside her, his powerful presence instantly silencing the room. "Where is my daughter? Where is the infant?"
"Mr. Hartford," the lead paramedic stepped forward, lowering his mask. "The child is stable. Miraculously, he was suffering from mild hypothermia, but the thick wool blanket and the prompt warmth inside saved his life. His body temperature is rising. We need to take him to Bridgeport Memorial for observation."
Catherine didn't listen to the paramedic's clinical report. Her eyes were locked on the small bundle inside the thermal bassinet.
She slowly walked over, dropping to her knees beside the stretcher. The paramedic stepped back, sensing the intense, terrifying grief emanating from the woman.
Catherine reached out a trembling hand. She didn't look at the baby’s face first. She looked at his chest.
There, tucked inside the paramedics' medical blankets, lay the green jade pendant.
Catherine touched the stone with the tip of her index finger. A sharp, ragged gasp left her lips. She traced the carved feathers of the double-headed phoenix, her eyes filling with hot, blinding tears.
"The Jade of the Twin Suns," Catherine whispered, her voice breaking into a agonized cry. "It was my mother's... it was given to my sister on the night she disappeared..."
Richard dropped down beside his wife, placing a heavy hand on her trembling shoulder. "Catherine... talk to me. Whose baby is this?"
Catherine looked up at Richard, her tear-stained face filled with a terrifying mix of profound grief and sudden, fierce hope. "This is my nephew, Richard. My sister... my younger sister, Evelyn... she was pregnant when the faction took over our family’s enterprise eight years ago. They told me she died in the fire in Singapore. They told me everyone was gone!"
She turned back to the baby, reaching in to gently stroke the faint black hair on the infant's scalp. The baby stirred, opening his dark eyes, looking up at Catherine with a faint, breathy sigh.
"She survived," Catherine sobbed, pressing her forehead against the edge of the bassinet. "Evelyn survived... but why was her baby in the river? What happened to her?!"
"Daddy?"
Richard turned his head.
Standing at the doorway of the study, wrapped in a oversized dry towel, was Mia. Her small hands held a warm mug of chamomile tea that Carla had given her. Her knees were bandaged, her dark hair wet and brushed back. She looked small, fragile, but her eyes were remarkably steady.
Richard immediately stood up, left the medics, and rushed across the foyer, dropping to his knees and pulling his little girl into an fierce, crushing embrace.
"Mia... oh God, Mia," Richard breathed into her wet hair, his own eyes burning with unshed tears. "You scared me to death. You could have been washed away in that river."
"I had to get him, Daddy," Mia whispered softly into his shoulder, holding her father tightly. "He was cold. The river was hurting him."
"I know, baby. I know," Richard pulled back, holding her small face in his broad hands. "You are the bravest girl in the world. But you have to tell me everything. Did you see anyone by the river? Did you see who put the bag there?"
Mia shook her head slowly. "No. Only the storm. But..." She stopped, her brow furrowing in concentration.
"But what, Mia?" Catherine asked, approaching them slowly, her voice trembling as she knelt beside her daughter. "Mia, sweetie... did you see something else?"
Mia reached into her small raincoat pocket, which was sitting on the bench near the door, and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper that was wet around the edges.
"It was inside the blue bag," Mia said, handing it to her mother. "It was tucked under his feet. It had ink on it, but the water made some of it go away."
Catherine took the soaked paper with shaking hands. Richard leaned in over her shoulder.
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Written in dark, hasty, unmistakable blue ink—in the elegant, flowing handwriting of Catherine’s long-lost sister—were six words, smeared by rainwater:
Save him. Chen knows I'm alive.
