Chapter 2 - THE EMPTY COFFIN
I did not sleep that night.
Mara tried to convince me to stay at a hotel under another name.
I refused.
Not because I felt brave.
Because I finally understood that whoever had sent the photograph wanted me moving.
Thinking.
Reacting.
Running blindly from one clue to the next.
I wasn’t going to make it easy for them.
Instead, I stayed in Mara’s guest room while two private security contractors sat outside the apartment.
At 3:17 in the morning, I was still staring at the photograph of my father.
Mara entered the kitchen wearing sweatpants and carrying two cups of coffee.
“You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“I watched him get buried.”
“You watched a coffin get buried.”
I looked at her.
She immediately regretted the sentence.
“So you believe it too.”
“I believe the photograph deserves verification.”
“That’s lawyer language.”
“Because I’m a lawyer.”
“You knew his coffin was closed.”
“Everyone knew.”
“Why was it closed?”
“The accident.”
“What accident?”
She placed the coffee in front of me.
“Emma.”
“I was seventeen.”
“I know.”
“People kept saying the boat exploded.”
“It did.”
“They told me there wasn’t enough left for an open casket.”
“That was what the official report said.”
“Did you ever read it?”
“No.”
“Did my mother?”
“I assume so.”
“You worked for her.”
“Years later.”
I looked down at the photograph again.
My father had been fifty-one when he supposedly died.
The man in the image looked sixty-two.
Exactly the age he would be now.
A coincidence could explain the eyes.
The height.
The shape of his shoulders.
Even the small indentation above his left eyebrow.
But not all of them.
Not together.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could Celeste have sent it?”
“Yes.”
“Nathan?”
“Possible.”
“Malcolm?”
Mara took a sip of coffee.
“If Malcolm sent it, then either he wants to frighten you or he wants you to ask the exact question the message suggested.”
“Why would he tell me to ask himself?”
“He probably wouldn’t.”
“So someone wants me to confront him.”
“Yes.”
“Are we going to?”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“No?”
“Not yet.”
“Mara.”
“If Adrian Ashford is alive, asking Malcolm directly gives away the only advantage we have.”
“What advantage?”
“That they don’t know what we know.”
“Nathan knows I found something.”
“He doesn’t know how much.”
“He knows I threatened his shares.”
“Which means he’s probably focused on the divorce.”
She leaned forward.
“Let him.”
I thought of Nathan kneeling on the marble.
For one brief moment after I said my lawyer would claim half his shares, I had seen pure fear on his face.
Not anger.
Fear.
At the time, I assumed he was afraid of losing money.
Now I wondered whether he had been afraid of something else.
“What happens today?”
“We preserve the jewelry-store footage.”
“Done.”
“We get you medically examined.”
I hated the idea.
“We need documentation.”
“I know.”
“We file for a temporary protective order.”
“Fine.”
“We challenge the share assignment.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“And then?”
Mara looked toward the blue trust file on the kitchen counter.
“Then we find out what your mother was hiding.”
At 9:00 a.m., a physician photographed the swelling along my cheekbone and documented tenderness near my jaw.
At 10:15, Mara filed notice disputing the validity of the transfer agreement bearing my forged signature.
At 11:02, Nathan’s attorney responded.
The speed told us everything.
They had been expecting it.
The document Nathan’s lawyers submitted was thirty-eight pages long.
It claimed I had knowingly granted Nathan proxy authority six months earlier.
It contained an electronic notarization.
A witness signature.
And a digital verification certificate.
Mara stared at the certificate.
“That is a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because forged signatures are one thing.”
She pointed at the identification number.
“Forged notarization records are another.”
“Who notarized it?”
“A woman named Denise Carroll.”
“Do I know her?”
“No.”
“Can we find her?”
“We already did.”
Mara turned her laptop toward me.
The search result contained one sentence.
DENISE MARIE CARROLL, 46, DIED FEBRUARY 18.
I felt something tighten behind my ribs.
“When was my document supposedly signed?”
“March 3.”
I stared at her.
“Two weeks after she died?”
“Thirteen days.”
“So it’s fake.”
“Obviously.”
“Then we win.”
Mara didn’t smile.
“Not necessarily quickly.”
I wanted to throw something.
“How can a dead woman notarize a document and we don’t win quickly?”
“Because the electronic notary credential was active until March 7.”
“Someone used it.”
“Yes.”
“Who had access?”
“That is what we’re going to find out.”
At noon, I received a message from Nathan.
EMMA, PLEASE COME HOME.
I ignored it.
Another followed.
WE NEED TO TALK BEFORE YOU DESTROY EVERYTHING.
Then another.
CELESTE MEANS NOTHING.
That one almost made me laugh.
I forwarded all three to Mara.
Her response came immediately.
SAVE THEM.
Twenty minutes later, Nathan called.
I answered this time.
Mara activated the recorder on her desk.
“Emma.”
Nathan sounded exhausted.
“What do you want?”
“I want you to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“This ridiculous legal attack.”
“You mean the legal attack against the document with my forged signature?”
Silence.
“I don’t know anything about that.”
“You submitted it through your lawyers.”
“I was told you signed it.”
“By who?”
Another silence.
“Nathan?”
“This isn’t something we should discuss over the phone.”
“Then tell me why you needed my shares before Friday.”
His breathing changed.
Barely.
But I heard it.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about my birthday.”
“I don’t know what you think is happening.”
“Then explain it.”
“Come home.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
His voice softened.
For six years, that voice had worked.
It was the voice he used when he wanted me to forgive the forgotten anniversaries.
The unexplained nights away.
The money that disappeared into projects I never understood.
The women I had been told were only clients.
Now it sounded rehearsed.
“We can fix this.”
“You hit me.”
“I lost control.”
“Twice?”
“Celeste had been filling my head with things.”
There it was.
The first crack.
“What things?”
“That you were planning to take the company.”
“The company isn’t yours.”
“I built Aurelia House.”
“With money from my family’s holding company.”
“I worked for it.”
“So did everyone you fired.”
He exhaled sharply.
“See?”
“What?”
“This version of you.”
I almost smiled.
“You mean the one who asks questions?”
“The one who thinks everyone is your enemy.”
“You slept with Celeste.”
“She isn’t important.”
“She worked for my mother.”
Silence.
This time it lasted too long.
I leaned closer to the phone.
“You didn’t know I knew that.”
“Emma.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How long have you known Celeste worked for my mother?”
He hung up.
Mara and I looked at each other.
“That was useful.”
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“He definitely knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then why pretend not to?”
“Because Celeste’s connection to Evelyn is something he doesn’t want tied to the rest.”
My mother’s name sat heavily between us.
Evelyn Ashford.
Elegant.
Controlled.
Impossible to read.
She had survived my father’s death by becoming harder.
She never remarried.
Never dated publicly.
Never spoke about the accident after the first year.
When I asked questions, she always gave the same answer.
“Your father loved you.”
Nothing about the boat.
Nothing about the investigation.
Nothing about why his body had never been shown to us.
At two that afternoon, Mara and I drove to the Ashford family townhouse.
It had been empty since my mother died.
I rarely went there.
Too many memories lived inside those walls.
The staff still maintained it.
The furniture remained beneath pale dust covers.
My mother’s perfume had disappeared years ago.
But sometimes, when I walked into her bedroom, I could still imagine it.
Mara headed toward the study.
“What are we looking for?”
“You tell me.”
“You said she changed the trust fourteen months before she died.”
“Yes.”
“Where would she keep documents she didn’t want Malcolm to see?”
Mara stopped.
“That is a very good question.”
My mother had trusted Malcolm Voss completely.
Or at least everyone believed she had.
If she hadn’t, then the answer wouldn’t be her office.
It would be somewhere Malcolm would never search.
I walked upstairs.
Past my childhood bedroom.
Past the guest rooms.
Into my father’s old dressing room.
The space had remained almost untouched after his death.
His suits were gone.
His watches had been distributed according to the estate.
But the built-in cabinets remained.
I opened one.
Empty.
Another.
Empty.
At the back of the third cabinet was a narrow drawer.
Inside lay a wooden box.
I remembered it immediately.
My father had kept cufflinks inside it.
I opened the lid.
Empty.
Mara stood behind me.
“Anything?”
“No.”
Then I noticed the bottom.
It was too thick.
I pressed along the edges.
Nothing.
I turned the box over.
A tiny scratch marked one corner.
I pushed.
The false bottom lifted.
Inside was a brass key.
And a folded piece of paper.
My hands shook as I opened it.
The handwriting belonged to my mother.
I would have recognized it anywhere.
EMMA.
IF YOU FIND THIS BEFORE YOUR TWENTY-NINTH BIRTHDAY, SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG.
TRUST MARA.
DO NOT TRUST MALCOLM.
AND WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING CELESTE PUTS IN FRONT OF YOU.
I stopped breathing.
Mara read over my shoulder.
“My God.”
There was another line.
IF ADRIAN CONTACTS YOU, MAKE HIM TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED IN MONTAUK.
I looked at Mara.
“Montauk?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Beneath the note was a number.
And an address.
First National Bank.
Madison Avenue.
“Safe-deposit box.”
Mara nodded.
The brass key suddenly felt much heavier.
We drove there immediately.
The bank manager checked the box number.
Then his expression changed.
“I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“Box 417 was closed.”
“When?”
He looked at his screen.
“Six years ago.”
“That isn’t possible.”
“I have the record.”
“Who closed it?”
The manager hesitated.
“Mrs. Ashford.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the contents?”
“They were transferred.”
“To where?”
“I would need authorization to release that.”
Mara slid her identification across the desk.
“You have it.”
Twenty minutes later, the manager returned.
He looked uncomfortable.
“The contents were transferred to another box.”
“What number?”
“920.”
“Whose name?”
He turned the screen toward us.
The account holder was not my mother.
Not my father.
Not Malcolm.
CELESTE ROWAN.
My heart began pounding.
“Is the box still active?”
“Yes.”
“When was it last accessed?”
He checked.
Then his face tightened.
“Today.”
“What time?”
“10:41 this morning.”
I looked at Mara.
We had been filing the challenge to Nathan’s forged document at 10:41.
Celeste had been here.
“What did she take?”
“We don’t record individual contents.”
“Security cameras?”
“Yes.”
“Preserve them.”
Mara was already reaching for her phone.
I looked toward the marble corridor leading to the vault.
Something glittered near the base of the wall.
I walked over.
It was small.
Gold.
An earring.
I had seen it two nights earlier.
Celeste had been wearing the matching pair at dinner.
I picked it up.
On the floor beneath it was something else.
A single drop of blood.
And beside the blood, scratched into the polished marble with what looked like a key, were three letters.
Mara stared at them.
“What does that mean?”
I knew.
I just didn’t understand how.
They were my father’s initials.
Adrian Victor Ashford.
And according to the bank’s access log, someone had entered Celeste’s box with her less than ten minutes before she left.
May you like
The name beside hers made my knees weaken.
ADRIAN ASHFORD.
