“I’m sorry.”
Megan turned.
“Robert, stop.”
“No.”
“You’re panicking.”
“I should be panicking!”
“You’re making this sound worse than it is.”
Bell looked at her.
“Mrs.
Carter, somebody attempted to obtain nearly half a million dollars using a fraudulent deed.”
“We didn’t get the money.”
“Failure does not necessarily erase attempted fraud.”
She paled.
Then Deputy Moreno came back inside.
“Claire Dalton’s vehicle isn’t outside.”
Megan nodded impatiently.
“I told you she left.”
“Did anyone see her leave?”
No one answered.
He looked at me.
“Is there another exit?”
“Rear porch.”
He went toward it.
The door was unlocked.
Wet sand marked the floor.
Bare footprints.
Small.
A woman’s.
They led from the porch toward the hallway.
Not away from it.
Deputy Moreno crouched.
“These are fresh.”
Megan whispered, “Claire?”
We followed the prints.
They crossed the hall.
Stopped outside Henry’s workshop.
The door stood open.
I felt my pulse in my throat.
Henry’s workshop had remained almost untouched since his death.
His hand tools still hung on pegboard.
Half a wooden gull sat on his bench waiting for a wing he would never carve.
Now drawers were open.
Boxes had been moved.
On the floor beneath his workbench lay a smear of blood.
Robert grabbed my arm.
“Mom.”
Deputy Moreno ordered us back.
He entered alone.
Nobody was there.
But one of Henry’s wooden wall panels had been pulled away.
Behind it was a narrow door.
Painted blue.
I stopped breathing.
All those years.
The blue door had been hidden inside the workshop wall.
Bell looked at me.
“You didn’t know?”
I shook my head.
There was no visible knob.
Only a tiny brass keyhole.
Robert whispered, “The key.”
The photograph.
I understood why Claire had wanted it.
Deputy Moreno tested the door.
Locked.
Then we heard something.
A thump.
From behind it.
Megan screamed her sister’s name.
Another thump answered.
Deputy Moreno forced the door.
The frame splintered.
Behind it was a narrow storage room.
Claire lay on the floor.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
Beside her was Henry’s black notebook.
And standing over her with a fireplace poker raised in both hands was a man I recognized.
My breath vanished.
“Daniel?”
My attorney froze.
Daniel Mercer—the man who had rewritten my estate plan, the man I had trusted with every private detail of my finances—slowly lowered the poker.
“Evelyn,” he said.
Deputy Moreno drew his weapon.
“Drop it.”
Daniel obeyed.
Claire groaned.
Megan rushed forward, but Moreno stopped her until he had secured Daniel.
“What happened?”
I demanded.
Daniel stared at Claire.
“She attacked me.”
Claire gave a broken laugh.
“He’s lying.”
“You broke into the room.”
“So did you.”
“This is insane,” Robert whispered.
I looked at Daniel.
“Why are you here?”
He seemed suddenly exhausted.
“You called me.”
“I pressed your number.
You never answered.”
“My phone rang while I was already outside.”
“Already outside?”
He nodded toward the notebook.
“Because I knew somebody would come looking for that.”
My skin crawled.
“How?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Because Henry told me.”
The world tilted.
“My husband has been dead eighteen months.”
“I know.”
“You never represented Henry.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No.”
“Not in the way you think.”
Claire pushed herself upright.
Blood stained her sleeve.
“Don’t listen to him, Evelyn.”
Megan shouted, “Claire, what did you do?”
Claire looked at her sister.
Something hard appeared behind her eyes.
“What I had to.”
Megan recoiled.
Bell picked up the black notebook with gloved hands.
“Everybody needs to stop talking.”
But I was past stopping.
I faced Daniel.
“You have thirty seconds before I decide I never want to hear another word from you again.”
He nodded.
“Henry came to me three years before he died.”
“Why?”
“He believed someone was stealing from Robert.”
Robert stared at him.
“What?”
“Small amounts at first.
Business accounts.
Reimbursements.
Vendor payments.”
Robert’s face changed.
Daniel continued.
“Henry noticed because you asked him to review your books after your first accountant quit.”
Robert sank against the wall.
“I remember.”
“Henry found payments to a consulting company called C.D.
Coastal Strategies.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Megan whispered, “C.D.”
Claire Dalton.
Robert looked sick.
“That company handled marketing.”
Daniel shook his head.
“It had no employees.”
Claire said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Daniel ignored her.
“Henry discovered approximately eighty-six thousand dollars transferred over two years.”
Robert stared at Claire.
“You stole from me?”
“I worked for you!”
“You sent invoices from a fake company.”
“I brought you clients.”
“And stole eighty-six thousand dollars?”
Claire’s face twisted.
“You were making millions.”
“I was not making millions.”
“You lived like you were.”
Megan stepped between them.
“You told me those payments were legitimate.”
Claire laughed.
“You never asked.”
That sentence echoed Robert’s excuse.
Nobody asked when the answer might cost them something.
I looked at Daniel.
“Why didn’t Henry tell Robert?”
“He tried.”
Robert’s head lifted.
“When?”
“Three years ago.
You told him your finances were none of his business.”
Robert covered his mouth.
Memory had found him.
I remembered that argument.
Henry came home furious.
He had refused to tell me why.
“He’ll learn,” was all he said.
Daniel continued.
“Henry worried that if he accused Claire without complete proof, Megan would see it as an attack on her family and Robert would push him away permanently.
So he documented everything.”
“In that notebook?”
“Yes.”
Claire said, “Most of it is nonsense.”
Bell opened the ledger.
His expression told me otherwise.
Daniel looked at me.
“Henry made me promise not to reveal it unless one of two things happened.”
“What things?”
“Robert discovered the theft himself.”
“And the other?”
Daniel’s eyes met mine.
“Someone tried to take this house.”
A chill ran through me.
Henry had known.
Years before Megan ever spoke about tearing down my sunroom, Henry had prepared a defense for a danger I did not even know existed.
“Why hide it here?”
“Because he trusted you.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if you understand Henry.”
Popular Posts
→- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Recently Viewed
Stories you read recently will appear here.
