Chapter 4 - THE LETTER EMILY NEVER SENT
Daniel read the message twice.
Then he handed the phone to Owen.
“Trace it.”
Owen was already calling his cyber team.
Emily stared at the photograph.
Samuel’s eyes were open.
There was blood near his temple.
He appeared conscious.
Vanessa stood behind him with one hand on the back of the chair.
For someone who had been publicly exposed less than two hours earlier, she looked frighteningly calm.
Emily enlarged the photograph.
“Wait.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“What?”
“Behind Samuel.”
There was a metal shelving unit.
A yellow sticker had been attached to one shelf.
Emily recognized the logo.
“Hawthorne Storage.”
Owen looked up.
“You know it?”
“There’s one in Bridgeport.”
“I used it when I moved back to Connecticut.”
Daniel looked at his phone.
“How many locations?”
Owen checked.
“Four in the state.”
Emily pointed toward the concrete wall.
“This one has blue support columns.”
“The Bridgeport location uses blue.”
Owen called his team.
Daniel grabbed his coat.
“Police first.”
“I know.”
Emily followed.
Daniel stopped.
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You’re not doing this again.”
“Doing what?”
“Deciding I should sit somewhere safe while everyone else moves.”
“Vanessa specifically wants you.”
“That is why Samuel is tied to a chair.”
“No.”
“That is why Samuel is alive.”
Emily froze.
Daniel continued.
“If she wanted Samuel dead, she would not have sent the photograph.”
“She wants leverage.”
“You are the leverage.”
Emily hated that he was probably right.
Owen ended his call.
“Bridgeport police are moving.”
“State police too.”
Daniel looked at Emily.
“You stay with my security team.”
She folded her arms.
“I’m going.”
“Emily.”
“Samuel helped my mother.”
“He was hurt because I started digging.”
“I’m not waiting at his house for someone to tell me whether he survived.”
Daniel stared at her.
Then nodded once.
“Fine.”
Owen sighed.
“I assume I no longer get a vote either.”
“No.”
Emily and Daniel answered together.
The drive to Bridgeport felt endless.
Police reached Hawthorne Storage first.
The unit shown in the photograph was empty.
A chair remained in the center.
Rope lay on the floor.
Samuel and Vanessa were gone.
Daniel punched the concrete wall.
Emily flinched.
He immediately stepped away.
“Sorry.”
“You didn’t hit me.”
“That doesn’t make it smart.”
Owen crouched near the chair.
“She knew we would identify the location.”
Emily looked around.
“Then why send the picture?”
Daniel’s anger faded into thought.
“She wanted us here.”
Owen stood.
“Why?”
A storage employee approached.
“Mr. Ashbourne?”
Daniel turned.
The young man held an envelope.
“A woman paid cash and asked me to give this to Emily Carter.”
Emily stared.
“When?”
“About forty minutes ago.”
“Did you see her?”
“Blond.”
“Thirtyish.”
“Black coat.”
Vanessa.
Emily opened the envelope.
Inside was another photograph.
This one was older.
Rose stood outside a motel.
Beside her was Celeste Vale.
The photograph had been taken after Rose was supposedly forced to disappear.
On the back were four words.
SHE WENT WITH HER.
Emily felt Daniel look at her.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Owen examined the photo.
“Could be manipulation.”
Emily nodded.
“Vanessa wants me to believe Rose trusted Celeste.”
“Or that they were working together.”
Daniel looked toward the empty chair.
“She also wanted to move us away from somewhere else.”
Owen’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed instantly.
“What?”
Daniel watched him.
Owen lowered the phone.
“Someone broke into Samuel’s house while we were driving here.”
Emily’s stomach dropped.
“What did they take?”
“The cassette tapes.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“That was the point.”
Emily felt sick.
Vanessa had manipulated them perfectly.
She had known police would move toward the storage location.
While security abandoned Samuel’s house, someone else removed the recordings.
Daniel turned to Owen.
“Did we copy the tape?”
“No.”
Emily looked at Daniel.
“But we heard it.”
“Yes.”
“That is evidence.”
“Not enough.”
Owen shook his head.
“Not against estate filings from twenty-eight years ago.”
“We need documents.”
Emily looked at the photograph of Rose and Celeste.
“We need the ledger.”
Daniel nodded.
“And the blue necklace.”
They returned to Ashbourne Manor near dawn.
Margaret had not slept.
She was waiting in the library.
Daniel told her about Samuel.
Margaret covered her mouth.
“This is happening because I stayed silent.”
Emily was too exhausted to comfort her.
“What does the blue necklace unlock?”
Margaret frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“My mother wrote that it was the key.”
“Rose said the same thing in the tape.”
Daniel looked at the jewelry photographs Margaret had brought out.
“The blue necklace disappeared the day Rose was fired.”
“If it physically unlocks something, maybe Eleanor designed it that way.”
Margaret shook her head.
“It was just jewelry.”
Emily studied one photograph.
The blue diamond pendant hung from a thick platinum setting.
Behind the center stone was a strange rectangular plate.
She enlarged the image on her phone.
“Not just jewelry.”
Daniel leaned closer.
The plate looked almost like a miniature key bit.
Margaret stared.
“I never noticed that.”
Emily looked around.
“Where would Eleanor hide something?”
Margaret smiled sadly.
“Everywhere.”
“She loved puzzles.”
“She had secret drawers in desks.”
“False panels in closets.”
“She once hid my birthday gift inside a grandfather clock for three months.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Rose wrote that the necklace was hidden where Eleanor said the truth always belonged.”
Margaret thought.
Then her face changed.
“The library.”
Emily looked around.
“We are in the library.”
“No.”
Margaret pointed toward the ceiling.
“Eleanor’s library.”
Daniel frowned.
“The old reading room?”
“Third floor.”
“She called it the truth room.”
They went upstairs.
Eleanor’s reading room had not been touched much since her death.
Dark shelves lined the walls.
A globe stood beside the window.
A portrait of Eleanor hung above a stone fireplace.
Emily walked slowly through the room.
Truth always belonged among books.
Maybe Rose had taken the necklace and hidden it here.
Daniel checked shelves.
Margaret opened old cabinets.
Emily looked at the fireplace.
The stone mantel contained carvings of ivy.
At the center was a small carved star.
She touched it.
It moved.
Daniel came closer.
Emily pressed again.
A narrow panel opened in the wall.
Inside was a metal slot.
The exact size of the rectangular plate behind the blue necklace.
Margaret whispered.
“My God.”
Daniel looked into the slot.
“The necklace is literally a key.”
Emily stared at the empty mechanism.
“Which means whoever has the necklace can open this.”
Margaret shook her head.
“But the blue necklace disappeared twenty-eight years ago.”
Emily thought of Rose’s letter.
Hidden where Eleanor said the truth always belonged.
“If Rose hid it here, someone may have found it.”
Daniel examined the panel.
“There are scratches.”
“Recent.”
Owen arrived at the doorway.
“Daniel.”
He looked grim.
“We have another problem.”
Daniel turned.
“What now?”
“Vanessa’s lawyer filed an emergency petition.”
“For what?”
“To suppress the CCTV footage.”
Emily stared.
“On what grounds?”
“She claims the camera in the foyer recorded her illegally.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“She lived here.”
“That is not the important part.”
Owen handed him the document.
“Her attorneys also filed a criminal complaint against Emily.”
Emily felt cold.
“For what?”
Owen looked at her.
“Corporate espionage.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
“She is claiming Emily entered Ashbourne Manor under false pretenses to steal confidential trust documents.”
Emily stared at him.
“She knows why I came.”
“She has your anonymous letter.”
Emily frowned.
“How?”
Then she remembered.
The letter had been on the library table before they left for Samuel’s house.
They returned.
It was gone.
Margaret whispered.
“Someone inside this house is helping her.”
Daniel looked toward Owen.
“Lock down the estate.”
“No staff leaves.”
“No staff enters.”
Owen nodded.
Emily walked toward the desk where she had left her belongings.
Her handbag remained there.
She checked inside.
Her wallet.
Keys.
Phone charger.
Everything seemed normal.
Then she found a folded sheet she had never seen before.
It was wedged beneath the lining.
She pulled it out.
Daniel watched her.
“What is it?”
Emily unfolded the page.
Her own handwriting covered it.
Except she had never written those words.
Dear Vanessa,
I know what the Carter shares are worth.
I know what happens on September 18.
Pay me twenty million dollars and I disappear.
Refuse, and I expose everything before your wedding.
Emily’s blood ran cold.
Daniel read the page.
“It’s forged.”
Margaret looked at the signature.
“It looks exact.”
Emily stared.
“Because someone copied my writing.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“From where?”
Emily thought.
Then remembered the housekeeping log.
Every employee wrote daily notes by hand.
Vanessa had access to them.
Owen cursed.
“She is building an extortion case.”
Emily turned the page over.
There was another sentence.
This time typed.
YOU HAVE ELEVEN DAYS UNTIL SEPTEMBER 18.
Daniel looked at Margaret.
“What happens September 18?”
Margaret stared at the date.
“I don’t know.”
Emily did.
“My anonymous letter said to come before September 18.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
His chief legal officer.
He answered.
“Mia.”
He listened.
His face hardened.
“Are you certain?”
Another pause.
“When did you find this?”
Emily watched him.
Daniel ended the call.
“What?”
He looked directly at her.
“September 18 is your thirtieth birthday.”
Emily frowned.
“How do your lawyers know my birthday?”
“Because they just found Eleanor’s original trust schedule.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“What does it say?”
Daniel’s voice was quiet.
“Rose’s twelve percent becomes legally claimable by Emily when she turns thirty.”
Emily stared.
“And if I’m convicted of theft or fraud before then?”
Daniel did not answer.
He did not need to.
Margaret whispered.
“The shares revert to the Vale trust.”
Emily looked toward the hidden slot in the wall.
Vanessa had eleven days.
Eleven days to turn Emily Carter into a criminal.
Then something clicked inside the wall.
All three of them froze.
The secret compartment above the fireplace slowly opened.
Someone had activated it from the other side.
A small object dropped onto the stone hearth.
Blue light flashed beneath the chandelier.
The missing necklace.
The blue Ashbourne Star.
Emily stepped toward it.
A piece of paper had been wrapped around the chain.
Daniel picked it up.
May you like
One sentence was written in Rose Carter’s handwriting.
IF EMILY FOUND THIS, CELESTE KNOWS I AM STILL ALIVE.
