Chapter 8 - The House Above the Bookstore
Nathan's helicopter reached Vermont in forty-three minutes.
Detective Mills contacted local police while they were still in the air.
By the time Nathan arrived, Margaret Bell's bookstore was surrounded by patrol cars.
The front window was broken.
A shelf had been overturned.
There was blood on the stairs.
Nathan ran toward the entrance.
An officer blocked him.
"You can't go in."
"Is she alive?"
The officer hesitated.
Nathan grabbed his sleeve.
"Is Margaret alive?"
"We haven't found her."
Nathan stopped.
"What do you mean?"
"The apartment is empty."
Mills arrived behind him.
The local detective allowed Mills inside and Nathan followed after arguing for three minutes.
Margaret's apartment looked as if someone had searched it in a hurry.
Drawers were open.
Cushions had been cut.
A picture frame lay shattered beside the fireplace.
Nathan recognized his mother in the photograph.
Caroline stood beside Margaret at a summer charity event.
Both women were laughing.
On the back, Caroline had written, To Maggie, who knows where every body is buried.
It had probably been a joke then.
Now Nathan was not sure.
Mills examined the blood trail.
"Not much."
"Meaning?"
"Could be from a cut."
Nathan looked toward the back door.
It stood open.
Outside, snowmelt darkened the alley.
There were tire tracks but no vehicle.
Marcus found a security camera across the street.
The footage showed a black van stopping behind the bookstore seventeen minutes after Nathan called Margaret.
Two men entered.
Seven minutes later, they left alone.
"Where is Margaret?" Nathan asked.
Marcus replayed the footage.
At the three-minute mark, a side door opened behind a delivery truck.
A small figure in a gray coat slipped into the alley.
Margaret had escaped before the men reached the apartment.
Nathan exhaled for the first time in minutes.
"Can we track her?"
Mills shook his head.
"Not if she's smart."
Nathan looked around the wrecked apartment.
"She survived my father."
"Then she's smart."
They searched until afternoon.
Inside an old sewing box, Nathan found a tiny brass key taped beneath the lid.
The key was labeled C.C. 19.
Mills wanted to log it as evidence.
Nathan noticed a second clue scratched into the wood beneath the tape.
ST. AGNES.
There was a Saint Agnes Church six blocks away.
The church had closed fifteen years earlier and now operated as a community archive.
Box nineteen in the archive room opened with the brass key.
Inside sat a stack of cassette tapes, a sealed medical envelope, and a handwritten note addressed to Nathan.
His hands shook before he unfolded it.
Nathan,
If you are reading this, your father finally failed to keep you from the truth.
The handwriting was Caroline's.
Nathan had not seen it since childhood.
His eyes blurred.
Grace's voice came through the secure call on his earpiece.
"Nathan?"
He could not answer for several seconds.
"It's my mother."
Grace went quiet.
Nathan continued reading.
I do not know how much time I have.
Richard believes my illness is exhaustion.
It is not.
The doctors cannot explain why I keep becoming sick after the dinners Victor sends from his private chef.
Nathan stopped.
Mills leaned closer.
Caroline had written more.
I began saving samples.
Margaret knows where.
If something happens to me, do not let Richard dismiss this as grief or paranoia.
He is too invested in Victor's money to see what Victor is capable of doing.
Nathan felt sick.
His mother had not died in a random car accident because she was ill.
The letter suggested she believed someone was poisoning her before the crash.
The medical envelope contained toxicology results from a private lab.
Repeated low-level exposure to a cardiac glycoside.
Mills read the report twice.
"This could cause dizziness, arrhythmia, weakness."
Nathan stared at him.
"Could it cause someone to crash a car?"
"It could contribute."
The report was dated three days before Caroline's death.
Nathan remembered the official story.
His mother had lost control on a wet road.
No alcohol.
No mechanical failure.
No other vehicle identified.
A tragic accident.
He had believed it for nineteen years.
"Why didn't Margaret go to the police?" Grace asked over the call.
Mills looked through the box.
Another note answered the question.
Richard knows.
He says exposing Victor would destroy the company and leave Nathan with nothing.
He wants me to stop asking questions.
Nathan sat down hard on a wooden archive chair.
His father had known.
Maybe not before Caroline died.
But afterward.
And he had chosen the company.
Again.
Grace understood before Nathan said it.
"Your father protected Victor."
Nathan looked at the handwritten words.
"He protected the empire."
There were twelve cassette tapes.
Most contained Caroline dictating notes about symptoms and business conversations.
Tape eleven changed everything.
Caroline's voice sounded weak.
"Victor came tonight."
Nathan closed his eyes and listened.
"He said Richard has agreed to the succession structure."
Paper rustled on the old recording.
"Victor wants Nathan eventually tied to the Kensington family."
Nathan opened his eyes.
Victoria had been twelve at the time.
"I told Richard our son will choose his own life."
Caroline gave a tired laugh.
"He told me love is a luxury families like ours cannot afford."
Nathan felt Grace's presence through the phone despite the miles between them.
Then Caroline said the sentence that made everyone in the archive room go still.
"Victoria was outside the study."
Nathan leaned closer.
"I thought she had gone home, but I heard her repeat what Victor said."
Caroline's voice dropped.
"She said, someday everything here will be mine."
The tape clicked off.
Nathan stared at the machine.
Victoria had grown up believing Cole Industries belonged to her future.
Lily was not simply threatening money.
She was destroying a destiny Victoria had been promised since childhood.
Mills opened the final cassette case.
It was empty.
On the inside, Margaret had written one line.
THE LAST TAPE IS INSURANCE.
Nathan's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Margaret Bell spoke before he could say anything.
"I have the last tape."
Nathan stood.
"Where are you?"
"Safe for now."
"Margaret, people broke into your home."
"I know."
"Come to the police."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because Richard trusted the police once."
Nathan looked at Mills.
Margaret continued.
"The last tape names the person who helped Victor after Caroline died."
Nathan's pulse quickened.
"Who?"
Margaret's answer chilled him.
May you like
"Someone who is still standing beside you."
The call ended.
