THE SON THEY BURIED WAS THEIR ONLY HEIR

Chapter Seven: The Voice From the Past

Benedict stood by the hotel window for a long time after he finished his call.

The room was silent.

But the woman's voice wasn't.

Because I knew you before you became Benedict.

He replayed the sentence in his mind.

Then the final word.

Ben.

His hand tightened around the phone.

For years, that name had existed only as fragments—inside half-remembered dreams, old photographs, and a voice he could never place.

Now someone had spoken it directly to him.

Someone who knew him before Ashcroft Manor.

Benedict sat down and called Mara.

She answered immediately.

"What's wrong?"

"Someone just called me."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"What did they say?"

Benedict hesitated.

"She called me Ben."

Silence.

Mara understood immediately.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What else?"

"She said she knew me before I became Benedict."

Mara's voice became cautious.

"Did she identify herself?"

"No."

"Can you trace the number?"

"Do it."

"I'll try."

Benedict ended the call.

He sat there, staring at the old pictures that were spread out all over the table.

The child.

Margaret.

The eastern wing.

The fire.

Every clue seemed to point toward the same missing piece.

His childhood.

But he still couldn't tell which memories were real.

At Ashcroft Manor, Eleanor couldn't sleep.

She stood in the library with the old photograph in her hands.

The memory had returned.

Margaret carrying a child.

Smoke filling the corridor.

Victor pulled Eleanor backward.

And a voice shouting from somewhere behind them.

Take him away!

Eleanor closed her eyes.

Then another fragment appeared.

A little hand reaching toward her.

A small silver bracelet around the wrist.

The symbol.

The same symbol she had seen on those old papers.

She opened her eyes.

"Ben..."

The word just slipped out of her mouth before she could catch herself.

A sound came from the doorway.

Victor.

He had heard her.

"You remember."

Eleanor turned.

"Some of it."

Victor entered slowly.

"What?"

"The child."

Victor's expression tightened.

"I remember Margaret carrying him."

"What else?"

"His voice."

Victor stopped.

"What did he say?"

"I don't know."

Eleanor looked down at the photograph.

"But I remember calling him something."

Victor stared at her.

"What?"

Eleanor looked up.

"Ben."

Victor's face lost its color.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Then Eleanor asked quietly,

"Why does that name frighten you?"

"It doesn't."

"You're lying."

Victor turned away.

"Eleanor..."

"No more secrets."

Her voice broke.

"I've spent twenty-four years believing things that weren't true. I won't spend another day doing it."

Victor closed his eyes.

"I don't know who the boy was."

"But you know the name."

Victor remained silent.

That was enough to answer.

Damian was by himself in his office, located on the other side of the city.

The anonymous message remained on his phone.

Stop asking questions about Benedict.

He should have ignored it.

He decided to take another look at the document that Harold Vance had handed over to him earlier.

Something bothered him.

The signature.

The date.

The restricted access code.

He searched the company's digital archive.

The document wasn't there.

He searched again.

Nothing.

It had been completely removed.

Damian leaned back.

Someone had erased it.

Someone still had access to the internal systems at Ashcroft.

He picked up his phone and called Benedict.

This time, Benedict answered.

"Damian."

"I need to ask you something."

"Go ahead."

"Do you know anything about the eastern wing?"

Benedict was silent.

"Why?"

I received a document related to this because someone shared it with me.

"Who?"

"Harold Vance."

Another silence.

Benedict's voice became serious.

"What exactly did he give you?"

Damian explained.

When he finished, Benedict asked,

"Did he say anything?"

We were actually given the wrong information about our family.

Benedict breathed slowly.

"He's right."

Damian frowned.

"You know something?"

"I know enough to know someone is hiding the truth."

"Then what are you going to do?"

Benedict looked at the photograph on his table.

"Find it."

Damian hesitated.

"Can I help?"

Benedict almost said no.

It then came back to him: the memory of Damian standing tall and alone during that really tough time with the client, and how he had handled it all by himself.

"Yes."

Damian straightened.

"What do you need?"

"Find every document Harold Vance signed before the fire."

"That's all?"

"For now."

"I'll do it."

The call ended.

Damian stared at the screen.

For the first time, he felt that Benedict wasn't simply investigating the past.

He was investigating something that could change the future of the Ashcroft family.

Mara called Benedict twenty minutes later.

"I traced part of the number."

"Where?"

"It was routed through several systems."

"Can you find the original?"

"I'm working on it."

"Anything else?"

"Yes."

Benedict waited.

"The number was used once before."

"When?"

"Twenty-four years ago."

His expression changed.

"Where?"

"An emergency call."

"From where?"

Mara's voice dropped.

"The Ashcroft estate."

Benedict stood.

"Who made the call?"

"We don't know."

"Can you recover it?"

"Maybe."

"Do it."

He ended the call.

Twenty-four years ago.

The same year as the fire.

The same year Margaret disappeared.

The same year the child vanished.

And now...

The same number had returned.

Benedict looked at the photograph.

He finally understood that the mysterious woman hadn't called him by accident.

She had waited twenty-four years.

Now it was time for Ben to recall the past, and she had made up her mind that this was the moment.

Mara's discovery changed everything.

Benedict got in his car and started driving to Ashcroft Manor, trying not to think too much about what he was doing, because if he did, he might change his mind.

If the same phone number had been in use back then, the woman who called him might have some answers about what really went down on that fateful night, twenty-four years ago, when the fire occurred. She might know exactly what happened, and that could be a game-changer.

But he couldn't confront her.

He didn't even know who she was.

So he needed the emergency record first.

When Benedict arrived at Mara's office, she was already waiting.

"I recovered part of the call log."

She turned the laptop toward him.

Benedict studied the screen.

Emergency Call — Ashcroft Estate.

Time: 11:47 p.m.

Caller ID: Restricted.

"That's it?" he asked.

"Almost."

Mara clicked another file.

A short transcript appeared.

Benedict read it.

His expression changed.

The transcript contained only a few words.

"There's a fire."

Then:

"Get him out."

And finally...

"Don't let them find the boy."

Benedict stared at the screen.

"That's all?"

"The recording was damaged."

"Can you recover the rest?"

"I'm trying."

He looked at the timestamp.

"Who arrived first?"

Mara opened another file.

"Fire services arrived at 11:58."

"Eleven minutes."

"Yes."

"Who made the second call?"

Mara shook her head.

"There was no second call."

Benedict stood.

"So it seems that the person who made the call was already aware that the fire was being taken care of."

Mara nodded.

"Which means they weren't simply reporting the fire."

"They were warning someone."

Benedict looked at the transcript again.

Get him out.

He closed his eyes.

A memory surfaced.

Smoke.

A woman's arms.

A man's voice.

Then darkness.

He opened his eyes.

"Mara."

"Yes?"

"Try to figure out who was at the place that evening."

She looked concerned.

"That's going to be a long list."

"Then start with the people who disappeared afterward."

At Ashcroft Manor, Eleanor confronted Victor again.

"You knew the boy was called Ben."

Victor sat silently.

"Victor."

"I heard the name."

"From whom?"

"Margaret."

Eleanor's eyes narrowed.

"When?"

"The night of the fire."

She took a breath.

"What did she say?"

Victor looked toward the fireplace.

"She told me his name."

"And you never told me?"

"I was afraid."

"Of Margaret?"

"No."

"Then who?"

Victor looked at her.

"Everyone."

Eleanor shook her head.

"That's not an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

She stepped closer.

"Did Benedict know Margaret?"

Victor's face tightened.

"I don't know."

"Did Margaret know Benedict?"

"I don't know."

"Victor, stop."

Her voice broke.

"You cannot keep saying you don't know."

Victor looked down.

"Then ask me what I do know."

Eleanor stared at him.

"What?"

Victor took a slow breath.

The boy shouldn't have been in Room 17.

"Why was he there?"

"I don't know."

"Who brought him?"

"I don't know."

"Who took him?"

Victor's eyes lifted.

"I saw Margaret carry him out."

"Then what?"

"She disappeared."

Eleanor whispered,

"And Benedict?"

Victor didn't answer.

She watched his face.

Then understood.

There was still something he was refusing to say.

Damian spent the afternoon searching through old company records.

A lot of the papers were either gone or had been taken somewhere else.

But he found something unexpected.

A payroll entry.

Margaret Vale.

Employment status: terminated.

Date: twenty-four years ago.

Reason:

Family instruction.

Damian frowned.

There was no authorized signature.

He continued searching.

Another document appeared.

A transportation record.

On the night of the fire, one of the employees had already left the Ashcroft property by 12:19 a.m.

Margaret Vale.

Damian's pulse quickened.

She had departed just twenty-one minutes after the emergency call was made.

But there was something else.

The record listed a passenger.

The name had been removed.

Damian stared at the blank space.

Someone had deliberately erased it.

He immediately called Benedict.

"Did you find something?" Benedict asked.

"Yes."

Damian explained.

"Margaret left the estate at 12:19."

"With someone?"

"The passenger's name was erased."

Benedict became silent.

"Can you recover it?"

"I don't know."

"Try."

"I will."

Damian hesitated.

"Benedict?"

"Yes?"

"There is something else."

"What?"

"The record says the vehicle belonged to Ashcroft."

Benedict's expression hardened.

"Who authorized it?"

"The signature is missing."

Again.

Another erased signature.

Another missing name.

Another piece of the same night.

That evening, Benedict returned to the hotel.

He found Mara's message waiting.

I traced the emergency number.

He called immediately.

"Who was it?"

Mara was silent for a moment.

"You're not going to like this."

"Tell me."

"The number wasn't registered to an individual."

"Then who?"

"A private line."

Benedict frowned.

"Whose?"

"Ashcroft Manor."

He closed his eyes.

"Which room?"

Mara took a breath.

"The library."

Benedict froze.

"The library?"

"Yes."

The same library where Eleanor had found the letters.

The same room where they had just received the latest warning.

Benedict looked around his hotel room.

The library had always been a place where he felt safe, a place that held a lot of good memories for him, and it had been that way for as long as he could remember.

It appeared that this was somehow linked to the very start of it all, the beginning of everything that had unfolded so far.

His phone vibrated.

Unknown number.

A message appeared.

You are getting too close.

Another followed.

But you deserve one answer.

Benedict waited.

A final message appeared.

The boy left the manor alive.

His breath caught.

He stared at the words.

For twenty-four years, everyone had treated the child from the fire as a mystery.

But someone knew.

The boy had survived.

Then another message appeared.

The question is not whether he survived.

A pause.

Then:

The question is who he became.

Benedict slowly lowered the phone.

His heartbeat was pounding.

The answer was close.

Dangerously close.

But he still didn't know whether the truth would destroy the family he had built...

Or reveal the family he had lost.