Chapter 3 - Beneath the Seventeenth PewThe private chapel looked different without candles and witnesses.
Moonlight entered through the narrow stained-glass windows and spread broken colors across the stone floor.
The white marble cross above the altar seemed less holy in darkness and more like a blade suspended over the room.
Willa closed the chapel door behind her and listened.
The mansion slept beyond two sets of corridors.
A grandfather clock struck one somewhere in the east wing.
She carried no flashlight because a moving beam might be seen from the courtyard.
Instead, she used the dim screen of an old digital watch she had found in Everett’s bedside drawer.
The north pews stood to her left.
She counted from the altar.
Fifteen.
Sixteen.
Seventeen.
The seventeenth pew looked identical to the others.
Dark oak.
Red velvet kneeler.
A brass plate engraved with the name of a Kane ancestor who had died before Willa was born.
She ran her fingers beneath the seat.
Nothing.
She checked the back panel and the carved end posts.
The key did not fit any visible opening.
For several minutes, she found only dust and hardened wax.
Then she remembered the exact engraving.
CHAPEL.
NORTH PEW.
SEVENTEEN.
Not beneath the pew.
Perhaps beneath the kneeler.
Willa lowered the padded rail.
A narrow brass cylinder had been set into the hinge.
The key slid inside.
She turned it.
A section of wood beneath the velvet cushion released with a soft click.
Inside was a black plastic pouch no larger than her hand.
Willa removed it and closed the compartment.
The pouch contained an old smartphone, a microSD card, and a folded note sealed inside waterproof film.
The note was written in heavy black ink.
IF I CANNOT SPEAK, FIND FISK.
DO NOT TRUST THE BOARD.
E.K.
Willa stared at Everett’s initials.
The phone would not turn on.
She pressed the power button again.
Nothing.
The battery had died long ago.
She slipped everything into the inner pocket of her coat.
A floorboard creaked near the chapel entrance.
Willa crouched behind the pew.
The door opened.
A man entered and closed it softly.
She saw polished shoes first.
Then the lower edge of a dark overcoat.
Sterling walked down the center aisle without turning on the lights.
He stopped beside Everett’s wedding bed position, now empty beneath the marble cross.
Another figure entered behind him.
Whitfield.
“You said the dosage would hold,” Sterling whispered.
“It would have if no one had altered the infusion.”
“You are certain she did?”
“His blood concentration fell seventeen percent in three days.”
Willa pressed one hand over the phone in her pocket to prevent it from striking the pew.
Sterling’s voice hardened.
“She has been inside that room under constant observation.”
“Observation is not constant if your staff are incompetent.”
“Careful.”
Whitfield exhaled.
“I am telling you the neurological activity is increasing.”
“How much does he understand?”
“I cannot know.”
“Then assume everything.”
Silence followed.
Willa could hear her own heartbeat.
Whitfield moved closer to Sterling.
“We need to end this before Friday.”
“The board vote happens Friday.”
“Then Thursday night.”
Sterling did not answer immediately.
When he did, his voice was quiet.
“The death must appear natural.”
“It will.”
“And the wife?”
Willa stopped breathing.
Whitfield’s shoes shifted against the stone.
“She has a history of medication negligence.”
Sterling gave a low laugh.
“That history may finally become useful.”
Willa understood the entire shape of the plan.
Whitfield would kill Everett.
Then they would claim Willa had tampered with the medication.
Her old disciplinary finding would make the accusation believable.
Sterling would gain the company, silence a witness, and remove the inconvenient wife in one act.
Whitfield walked toward the north side of the chapel.
His steps approached the seventeenth pew.
Willa looked around for another exit.
There was none.
She flattened herself against the floor beneath the line of pew backs.
Whitfield stopped less than six feet away.
“Why hold the wedding here?” he asked.
“Family tradition.”
“You do not believe in tradition.”
“I believe in documents signed before witnesses.”
Whitfield touched the pew.
The wood gave a faint groan.
Willa’s fingers closed around the brass key in her pocket.
If he lowered the kneeler, he would see that the hidden compartment had been opened.
Sterling spoke from the aisle.
“Her mother recognized you.”
Whitfield’s hand stopped.
“What did she say?”
“Nothing coherent.”
“That woman remembers more than she should.”
“She has advanced dementia.”
“She had enough memory to become dangerous three years ago.”
Willa’s mind sharpened.
Three years ago.
Ruth had seen something after Harold Fisk’s supposed death.
Whitfield stepped away from the pew.
“I want her transferred tomorrow.”
“To where?”
“North Shore House.”
Sterling sounded amused.
“That is not a memory-care facility.”
“It has locked rooms.”
Willa bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself still.
Sterling walked back toward the door.
“Arrange it.”
“And Willa?”
“Let her believe she is winning until Thursday.”
The chapel door closed behind them.
Willa remained on the floor for a full minute.
Then she crawled into the aisle and stood on shaking legs.
She had less than forty-eight hours.
Back in Everett’s room, she locked the service panel and placed the dead phone beneath a towel on the bathroom counter.
She found a charging cable in a desk drawer, but the connector did not fit.
The phone was an older model.
The estate’s newer cables were useless.
She removed the microSD card.
Her own phone had no slot.
She needed a computer, an adapter, or someone outside the house.
Everett’s finger moved when she told him what she had heard.
“Whitfield plans to kill you Thursday night.”
One movement.
“He plans to blame me.”
One movement.
“They are transferring my mother tomorrow.”
Everett’s hand tensed.
“Do you know North Shore House?”
One movement.
“Is it dangerous?”
One movement.
“Can Crowley help?”
Everett paused.
Then one movement.
Willa opened the service panel and waited.
Crowley appeared twenty minutes later, fully dressed, as though he had expected her.
She held up the black pouch.
His eyes narrowed.
“You found it.”
“You knew it was there.”
“I knew Mr. Kane hid something in the chapel before the accident.”
“You gave me the key.”
“Yes.”
“Why not retrieve it yourself?”
“Because Sterling has searched my rooms twice.”
“And he will not search mine?”
“He believes you own nothing worth hiding.”
Willa handed Crowley the note but kept the phone and card.
He read Everett’s words.
For the first time, his control slipped.
His eyes closed briefly.
“He prepared for this.”
“He knew someone would try to silence him.”
Crowley folded the note.
“He knew many people would.”
“Who is Harold Fisk?”
Crowley looked at Everett.
“A senior accountant at Kane River Logistics.”
“What did he find?”
“Payments routed through hospital contractors, nursing facilities, and shell companies.”
“Payments to whom?”
“I never saw the ledger.”
“Everett did?”
“Yes.”
“Was Fisk murdered?”
“Officially, he died at St. Ambrose.”
“My mother says he did not.”
Crowley’s face became still again.
“That would explain why Everett continued searching.”
“Why was I framed?”
“I do not know.”
“Whitfield testified against me.”
“And now Whitfield is keeping Everett unconscious.”
Willa stepped closer.
“Those events are connected.”
“Almost certainly.”
“Then help me get my mother out.”
Crowley turned toward the hidden passage.
“I cannot move her without Sterling knowing.”
“He is transferring her to a locked house tomorrow.”
Crowley looked back sharply.
“How do you know?”
“I heard him and Whitfield in the chapel.”
She repeated the conversation.
Crowley listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he walked to the window.
“There is one person who may help.”
“Who?”
“A former Kane security chief named Nicholas Rourke.”
“Why former?”
“Sterling dismissed him two weeks after the accident.”
“Can you contact him?”
“Not from this house.”
Willa showed him the dead phone.
“I need a charger and a card reader.”
Crowley examined the model.
“The library computer has an adapter in the lower desk drawer.”
“The library is restricted.”
“So is the truth.”
He opened the service panel.
“The corridor behind this wall reaches the old library staircase.”
Willa glanced at Everett.
“I cannot leave him alone.”
“I will remain here.”
“Do you know how to protect the IV?”
Crowley met her gaze.
“I watched nurses care for Everett’s father through six years of cancer.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
“But I know how to call you if the monitor changes.”
Willa hesitated.
Everett’s finger moved once.
Go.
The hidden passage smelled of dust and cedar.
Willa followed it through the walls, down a narrow staircase, and into a locked cabinet behind the library shelves.
The library was dark.
She found the computer and inserted the microSD card.
Three files appeared.
One was an encrypted spreadsheet.
One was a photograph of Harold Fisk standing beside Everett in what looked like a motel room.
The date stamp was four months after Fisk’s reported death.
The third file was an audio recording.
Willa put on the desk headphones and pressed play.
Wind roared across the microphone.
A car door slammed.
Everett’s voice said, “You do not have to do this, Sterling.”
Sterling answered, “You should have signed the transfer.”
Another voice spoke in the background.
Whitfield.
“The dose is already in him.”
There was a struggle.
Metal struck metal.
Everett cursed.
Then Sterling said the words that turned Willa’s blood to ice.
“Push the car over before he wakes.”
The recording ended with a crash and the sound of breaking glass.
Willa copied all three files to the computer.
A warning appeared.
NETWORK BACKUP IN PROGRESS.
She tried to cancel it.
May you like
The screen froze.
Somewhere inside the mansion, an alarm began to ring.
