Chapter 5 - The Door Grace Guarded
I sent Sophie and Caleb into the reinforced family room with Daniel.
Grace tried to follow me.
“No.”
She stopped.
“He came for me.”
“Exactly.”
“That means I may know why.”
“And that makes you a target.”
“It also makes me useful.”
I stared at her.
“You argue too much.”
“So I’ve been told.”
A sound came from the service corridor.
I motioned for her to stay back.
We moved toward it.
The hallway was dark.
I opened the door to the old staff office.
Empty.
Then Grace noticed something.
“The cabinet.”
“What?”
“It’s moved.”
Behind it was a small wall safe.
Grace held up the brass key.
My eyes narrowed.
“You think—”
“Yes.”
The key fit.
Inside were three flash drives.
A ledger.
And an envelope.
Grace picked it up.
Her name was written across the front.
GRACE MILLER.
Her hands shook.
“That’s Thomas’s handwriting.”
“Open it.”
She did.
The letter was short.
Grace read aloud.
“If you find this, I failed to get out clean.”
She stopped.
I waited.
She continued.
“The theft is bigger than one company. Someone close to Whitaker is moving money through household contractors. I don’t trust security.”
Grace swallowed.
Daniel had arrived behind us.
She kept reading.
“The name I found was M. Cole.”
Martin.
Grace’s eyes lifted.
“My brother knew.”
Daniel took the ledger.
“This could prove Martin was stealing years before Vanessa entered the picture.”
I looked at Grace.
“Why hide it here?”
“Thomas used to work from the estate during audits.”
A gunshot cracked from downstairs.
Grace flinched.
I pushed her behind the wall.
“Stay here.”
“Evan—”
“Stay.”
I moved downstairs with two security men.
Martin stood in the foyer.
He had taken a guard’s weapon.
Bennett’s officers were outside.
Martin’s face was slick with sweat.
“This didn’t have to happen.”
I stopped halfway down the staircase.
“You ran from police custody and returned to my house.”
“I need the ledger.”
“So you knew it was here.”
“Thomas told me before he died.”
Grace appeared above me.
Martin saw her.
“There she is.”
I looked back sharply.
“I told you to stay.”
Grace ignored me.
“My brother trusted you.”
Martin laughed.
“Your brother was going to destroy everything.”
“What did you do?”
Martin said nothing.
Grace’s face changed.
“What did you do?”
“Grace.”
Her eyes filled, but she didn’t look away.
“Was his accident really an accident?”
Martin lowered the gun slightly.
That was answer enough.
Grace went still.
Daniel whispered, “Oh God.”
Martin shook his head.
“He was supposed to stop asking questions.”
“You killed him?”
“I didn’t touch him.”
“You arranged it.”
“I made a call.”
Grace’s voice broke.
“You made a call?”
Martin looked exhausted.
“I had debts.”
“Thomas had a daughter.”
Martin blinked.
“What?”
“My brother had a six-year-old daughter.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t care.”
Martin raised the gun again.
“I need that ledger.”
I stepped lower.
“You’re not getting it.”
“Evan, don’t make me—”
“Make you what?”
He swallowed.
“You’ve known me fifteen years.”
“Which makes this worse.”
“I protected you.”
“You endangered my children.”
“Vanessa was supposed to be temporary.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What does Vanessa have to do with your theft?”
“She found out.”
Grace whispered, “That’s why you helped her.”
Martin laughed bitterly.
“She caught me moving money.”
“So she blackmailed you,” Daniel said.
“At first.”
“And then?”
“She realized I could be useful.”
I thought of the disabled cameras.
The trust documents.
The missing money.
Everything connected.
“Vanessa threatened to expose you unless you helped her control the household.”
“Yes.”
“And if I married her?”
Martin looked at the floor.
“She wanted access to the family trust structure.”
My jaw tightened.
“She was using my children.”
“I told her to leave them alone.”
“Yet you disabled the cameras.”
“I know.”
“Too late.”
Sirens grew louder outside.
Martin panicked.
“I need the ledger!”
Caleb’s voice suddenly came from upstairs.
“Daddy?”
Every person in the foyer froze.
Caleb had slipped out of the safe room.
He stood at the top of the staircase holding his rabbit.
Martin turned instinctively.
That was his mistake.
I crossed the distance before he could think.
The weapon hit the marble floor.
My security men restrained him.
Bennett’s officers flooded the house seconds later.
Grace ran upstairs and grabbed Caleb.
“What are you doing out here?”
He started crying.
“I wanted Daddy.”
I walked toward him.
Grace handed him to me.
I held my son tightly.
“It’s okay.”
He buried his face against me.
“I don’t like the bad rules.”
I looked over his head at Sophie, standing beside Daniel.
“Neither do I.”
Sophie whispered, “Are they gone now?”
I looked toward Martin being taken outside.
Then toward the room where Vanessa had spent the afternoon telling police lies.
“Yes.”
But Grace shook her head.
“Not yet.”
I looked at her.
She held Thomas’s ledger.
“If Vanessa knew about Martin’s crimes…”
Daniel finished the thought.
“She may know more than she admitted.”
Grace nodded.
“And if she was blackmailing him, she kept proof.”
I looked toward the east wing.
Vanessa’s bedroom.
May you like
“Then we find it.”
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