Chapter 5: The Copy He Didn't Know About
I read Marcus's message twice, then called him directly.
"How long ago?" I said.
"Tire tracks in the snow behind the greenhouse are fresh.
Less than an hour.
They knew exactly where to go — no searching, no damage to the other panels.
Straight to the third one."
"Hargrove."
"Has to be.
Or someone he sent."
"Find him." I ended the call.
Victoria was watching me from her chair.
She had heard enough to understand.
The small lift at the corner of her mouth told me she thought the documents being gone meant she had won.
"Whatever Richard left behind," she said, "is no longer your concern."
"You're right," I said.
"The originals aren't."
The lift disappeared.
I walked back into Elena's room and sat beside her.
"The documents are gone," I said.
"Someone took them from the greenhouse tonight, probably while we were here."
Elena closed her eye.
"Dad said he made a copy."
I waited.
"He said he gave a copy to someone outside the family.
Someone Hargrove would never think to look for." She opened her eye.
"His name is Walter Fenn.
He was Dad's accountant for thirty years before Hargrove came in.
Dad let Hargrove take over the company accounts but he never stopped meeting Walter privately.
Once a year, every December, at a diner in Saranac Lake."
"Does Walter know what he's holding?"
"Dad told him to open the envelope only if something happened to me or to the estate." She paused.
"I think something has happened to both."
I called Marcus back.
"Find a man named Walter Fenn.
Retired accountant, Saranac Lake area.
Bring him somewhere safe and don't tell him who I am yet.
Tell him Elena Vance sent you."
I walked back out to the corridor.
Victoria's composure had returned, rebuilt in the two minutes I had been inside.
She looked at me with the particular patience of someone who believes they have already won and is simply waiting for the other person to realize it.
"Hargrove will have the documents authenticated and destroyed before morning," she said.
"Whatever Richard thought he was protecting is finished."
"Richard gave a copy to Walter Fenn," I said.
Her face did not move.
But her right hand, resting on her knee, pressed flat against the fabric of her coat.
"Walter retired years ago," she said.
"He's an old man.
He won't remember—"
"He'll remember," I said.
"Richard met him every December.
Last December included."
Julian looked up from the floor.
"Walter Fenn came to Dad's funeral," he said slowly.
"He sat in the back.
Mom made me ask him to leave during the reception." He looked at Victoria.
"You said he was inappropriate.
That he'd had too much to drink." He stood up.
"He hadn't been drinking, had he?"
Victoria said nothing.
"You knew about Walter," Julian said.
"You knew and you still—" He stopped.
He looked at me.
"What was in those documents?
What was Hargrove actually moving through the company?"
"That's what Walter is going to tell us," I said.
My phone buzzed.
Marcus again: *Found him.
He's safe.
He has the envelope.
It's sealed.*
I looked at Victoria.
"The copy exists," I said.
"Walter has it.
And in about forty minutes, I'm going to know exactly what your husband found."
Victoria stood up from the chair for the first time.
She smoothed her coat with both hands, slowly, as if she had all the time in the world.
"I want to speak to my daughter," she said.
"Alone."
"No," I said.
"She's my daughter."
"She's my wife.
And she's in a hospital bed because of decisions made in your house tonight." I held the door to Elena's room closed.
"You don't go in there without me."
Victoria looked at me for a long moment.
Then she said, very quietly: "You have no idea what you're walking into, Elias.
Hargrove has friends.
Not the kind that write letters.
The kind that solve problems."
May you like
It was the first time she had used my name.
"So do I," I said.
