Chapter 4 - The Man Inside My House
“Marcus!”
I ran toward the hallway.
Detective Quinn grabbed my sleeve.
“Stay inside.”
“My attorney just disappeared.”
“And someone fired a weapon outside your house.”
She motioned to two officers.
They moved toward the rear entrance.
Daniel checked the security panel.
Still dead.
Elena brought the girls into the library and shut the curtains.
Victor remained seated.
Too calm.
I turned on him.
“You knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That Evelyn suspected someone else.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me think she trusted you with the girls because she feared me.”
“She did.”
“You also knew she recorded that message.”
“No.”
I watched his face.
Victor had lied to me before.
Every man in our world lied.
But after twelve years, I knew his rhythms.
This answer felt true.
The detectives searched the property.
The gunshot had come from the garden.
They found no body.
No blood.
No Marcus.
Only his car sitting in the circular drive with the driver's door open.
Then they found his phone.
Inside a hedge.
Detective Quinn returned carrying it in an evidence bag.
“Last outgoing call was three minutes before the power failed.”
“To whom?”
“We're tracing it.”
I looked toward the laptop.
“Can we recover the rest of the recording?”
“Possibly.”
The file had stopped at the name.
Not deleted.
Interrupted.
The laptop battery should have kept it running, but someone had remotely corrupted the playback.
Quinn looked at Victor.
“Who knew this system well enough to do that?”
Victor answered, “Several people.”
“Names.”
“Daniel.”
Daniel laughed in disbelief.
“Of course.”
“Caleb Frost.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
Victor frowned.
“Off today.”
“And Mason Webb?”
“Vacation.”
Quinn wrote both names.
“Anyone else?”
Victor looked at me.
“Marcus.”
I felt cold again.
My attorney had been around almost as long as Victor.
He knew my houses.
My companies.
My weaknesses.
He had access to trust documents.
Financial records.
Schedules.
And Evelyn had known him well.
I remembered the way Marcus went still when the recording said someone Adrian trusted more than Victor.
Had that been fear?
Or guilt?
The girls remained in the library.
I went to them.
Olivia had spoken several words since the accusation downstairs, but now she had retreated into silence.
Sophie hadn't spoken at all.
Nora hadn't either after screaming my name.
I didn't care.
Not anymore.
Their voices were not something I was entitled to.
I sat on the rug several feet away.
Elena watched me.
“I should have been here,” I said.
Olivia looked at me.
“Fourteen months ago. I should have been with you.”
She stared.
“I thought money and guards and walls made you safe.”
My voice broke slightly.
“I was wrong.”
Nora crawled off the sofa.
She approached cautiously.
Then sat beside me.
Not touching.
Just close.
It was enough.
I looked at Elena.
“How did you find the music box?”
“I didn't.”
She nodded toward Nora.
“She did.”
Nora pointed toward the west wing.
“Storage again?”
She nodded.
“But archive storage has been locked.”
Nora shook her head.
She stood.
Then walked toward the hallway.
Elena and I followed.
Nora led us past the main staircase.
Past Evelyn's old office.
Past the portrait gallery.
To a narrow service corridor.
At the end stood a wall panel.
Nora pressed one carved edge.
The panel opened.
I stared.
A hidden servant passage.
Original to the house.
I had forgotten it existed.
Evelyn hadn't.
The passage led behind several rooms.
Including archive storage.
Nora walked carefully.
At one point she stopped and touched the wall.
There were crayon marks near the baseboard.
Three small suns.
Yellow.
Purple.
Blue.
The colors of their dresses.
I looked at Elena.
“They've been here before.”
Nora nodded.
We reached another panel.
Behind it was archive storage.
The door could be locked from the hallway, but the concealed entrance bypassed it.
Someone had used this route.
Fourteen months earlier.
Maybe many times since.
We entered.
Boxes filled the room.
Evelyn's belongings occupied one wall.
Nora went directly to a wooden trunk.
She tapped it.
I opened the lid.
Clothes.
Old photographs.
A scarf that still smelled faintly like Evelyn's perfume.
I had to stop for a moment.
Nora moved aside the scarf.
Underneath was a child-sized backpack.
Olivia's.
I pulled it out.
Inside were crayons.
A stuffed rabbit.
A juice box so old it had collapsed inward.
And a small voice recorder.
My hands started shaking.
Nora pointed to it.
“Elena.”
She had spoken.
One word.
Elena knelt.
“I'm here.”
Nora looked at me.
Then at the recorder.
“Mommy.”
I understood.
Evelyn had given it to them.
I pressed play.
At first there was nothing.
Then children's breathing.
Whispering.
Evelyn's voice farther away.
“Hurry. Behind the wall.”
Another man's voice answered.
We couldn't hear the words clearly.
Then Evelyn shouted.
“Don't touch my daughters.”
Nora covered her ears.
I stopped the recording immediately.
“No more.”
She looked surprised.
I handed it to Detective Quinn when she entered moments later.
“You don't want to hear the rest?”
“Not with them here.”
Quinn nodded.
That look from a police officer should not have mattered.
But it did.
Maybe because I was trying to become a man who could be trusted with fragile things.
An hour later Quinn called me into the dining room.
Victor was already there.
Daniel too.
They had enhanced the recorder enough to identify several sections.
Evelyn's conversation was with someone she knew.
A man.
She accused him of using my companies to launder stolen money.
He accused her of snooping.
Then she said one sentence.
“I already told Adrian's lawyer.”
Marcus.
Victor looked at me.
“That explains why she trusted him.”
Quinn corrected him.
“Or why she became dangerous to him.”
The recording continued.
Evelyn said, “Marcus has copies.”
Then the man's voice came closer.
“You never should have involved Hale.”
It wasn't Marcus.
I knew that much.
Different voice.
Deeper.
Quinn paused.
“Recognize him?”
Victor and I exchanged a look.
“Yes,” we said together.
Caleb Frost.
One of Victor's security supervisors.
The same man with master-locker access.
Quinn immediately sent officers to Caleb's apartment.
Empty.
His phone was off.
Passport gone.
Then she played the next piece.
Caleb said something about “the attorney handling the papers.”
Evelyn responded, “Marcus doesn't know what you think he knows.”
Caleb laughed.
“Marcus knows exactly what he's doing.”
I leaned back.
So Marcus might still be involved.
Then Evelyn said, “Victor has the second file.”
Victor stood abruptly.
“I don't have any file.”
Quinn looked at him.
“Sit.”
“I swear.”
I stared at him.
“What second file?”
“I don't know.”
“You helped her investigate.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Caleb was stealing?”
“I suspected.”
“And didn't tell me.”
“Because Evelyn made me promise.”
“Why?”
Victor looked ashamed.
“Because she believed you'd kill him.”
I said nothing.
Because she had been right.
Victor continued.
“She wanted evidence strong enough to send him to prison. She wanted you out of the entire business afterward.”
“She thought she could force me to leave.”
“She thought your daughters could.”
That landed.
I looked toward the library.
Maybe Evelyn understood me better than I understood myself.
Quinn's phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed.
“They found Marcus.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“An abandoned marina.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled.
“But he's hurt.”
We drove to the hospital under police escort.
Marcus had been struck in the head and left unconscious.
When he woke, I stood at the foot of his bed.
He looked at me.
“I didn't run.”
“I know.”
“Caleb took me.”
“Why?”
“He wanted something.”
“The second file?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“You know about it.”
“Victor says he doesn't.”
“He doesn't.”
I leaned closer.
“Then who does?”
Marcus looked frightened.
Not of me.
Of the answer.
“Evelyn gave it to someone fourteen months ago.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
“Marcus.”
“She said it was the only person Caleb would never suspect.”
I tried to think.
Evelyn's sister?
Her doctor?
One of the girls?
Marcus continued.
“She said the file would stay hidden until Olivia was ready.”
My blood went cold.
“Olivia?”
Before he could explain, my phone vibrated.
A message from Elena.
COME HOME NOW.
Then another.
OLIVIA FOUND SOMETHING.
I called immediately.
No answer.
Then a photograph arrived.
It showed Olivia standing beside Evelyn's old vanity.
In her hand was a sealed envelope.
May you like
Across the front, in Evelyn's handwriting, were four words.
FOR ADRIAN—WHEN SHE SPEAKS.
