Chapter 5: The One Who Warned Him
I called Luke back inside.
He came up in four minutes.
I pointed at the chair across from my desk.
He sat.
"Three people knew what I found this morning," I said.
"You.
Me.
Emma."
"Emma didn't leave the house," Luke said immediately.
"I had someone on the door from six a.m.
She hasn't made a call.
Her phone is a prepaid with forty-three minutes left on it.
I checked the outgoing log an hour ago."
"Then it was someone else."
Luke's expression shifted.
"Or someone was already watching."
"Explain."
"Victor Hale has been my father's attorney for thirty years.
He knows this estate.
He knows the filing system.
He may have had a flag on those records — anyone pulling them, any access request." Luke paused.
"He may not have needed a tip.
He may have been notified the moment the storage request went through."
I hadn't thought of that.
I should have.
"Can you confirm it?"
"I can try.
Storage facility keeps access logs.
If there's an automatic notification tied to those files, there'll be a record of who set it up and when."
"Do it today."
Luke stood.
He was almost at the door when I said, "Who else in this house has access to my father's storage account credentials?"
He stopped.
Turned back slowly.
"Formally?
Just me.
But the credentials have been the same since your father's time.
Anyone who worked here long enough and paid attention could have them."
"How long has the head housekeeper been here?"
A pause.
"Nineteen years."
I thought about the warning she had given Emma on her first night.
Don't look at him.
Don't speak unnecessarily.
Don't touch the medical equipment.
Standard instructions.
Or instructions designed to keep Emma from getting close enough to ask questions.
"Find out if she has any connection to Victor Hale," I said.
"Financial.
Personal.
Anything."
Luke left without another word.
I wheeled to the window.
Below, the estate grounds were gray under a November sky, the trees stripped bare, the long driveway empty.
Emma appeared in the reflection behind me.
She was standing in the doorway with two mugs.
"I heard some of that," she said.
"How much?"
"Enough." She crossed the room and set one mug on the edge of the desk.
"You think someone in this house warned him."
"It's possible."
She sat in the chair Luke had just left.
"Mrs.
Brennan has worked here since before you inherited the estate."
"I know."
"She was the one who processed my application.
She approved my hire." Emma wrapped both hands around her mug.
"She never asked me a single question about my background.
Most employers ask something.
She didn't ask anything."
I looked at her.
"You noticed that."
"I notice things," she said simply.
"Why didn't you say something?"
"Because I didn't know if it mattered.
And because I was trying very hard not to give anyone a reason to look at me too closely."
I understood that.
I had spent two years doing the same thing from a different direction — making everyone afraid to look at me at all.
"My lawyer's name is Carla Reyes," I said.
"She's been independent of this estate since I hired her four years ago.
She's never worked with Hale.
I'm calling her this afternoon."
Emma nodded.
"There's something else," I said.
"The property Hale received.
The Lincoln Park transfer.
I want to know if it was the only one."
"You think there were more."
"I think a man who buries a paternity letter and accepts a two-point-four-million-dollar property in the same quarter doesn't do it once." I picked up the next folder from the box.
"I think he did it as many times as my father needed him to."
Emma was quiet for a moment.
"What was he like?" she asked.
"Your father."
I set the folder down.
"Controlled.
Precise.
He never raised his voice.
He never had to." I paused.
"He built everything I inherited and he made sure it would stay exactly as he designed it.
No loose ends."
Emma looked at her hands.
"I was a loose end."
"Yes," I said.
"You were."
It was a hard thing to say.
She didn't flinch from it.
"Then let's find out how many other loose ends he buried," she said.
She reached across the desk and picked up the next folder herself.
I let her.
That evening, Mrs.
Brennan knocked on my study door at seven o'clock exactly, as she did every evening to confirm the overnight schedule.
I told her to come in.
She stood in the doorway with her clipboard.
Same posture as always.
Same careful distance.
"Will Miss Carter be staying in the guest room again tonight?" she asked.
"Yes."
A pause so small most people would have missed it.
"Of course."
She turned to go.
"Mrs.
Brennan," I said.
She stopped.
"How long have you known Victor Hale?"
The clipboard didn't move.
Her shoulders didn't move.
But something in the room changed.
"I'm not sure I know what you mean," she said.
"I think you do," I said.
"Take the evening.
Think carefully.
We'll talk in the morning."
She left.
Her footsteps down the hallway were perfectly even.
But she didn't go to the kitchen.
May you like
She went straight to her room.
And ten minutes later, Luke texted me one word: *She's on the phone.*
