Chapter 8 - The Dead Man’s Ledger
Adrian fired first.
The mill erupted.
Daniel's team hit the lights.
Sophia grabbed Emma and pulled her behind machinery.
Adrian reached Clara.
Dominic escaped through a rear passage.
But Clara was alive.
“What did Thomas hide with Emma?” Adrian demanded.
“Nothing.”
“Dominic thinks—”
“He's wrong.”
Clara looked toward her daughter.
“Thomas died before Emma was born.”
That changed everything.
If Thomas could not have hidden something physically with Emma, he had meant something else.
With my daughter.
Clara.
But Clara had burned the uniform.
Or claimed she had.
Back at the estate, Clara finally admitted the truth.
“I didn't burn it.”
“Where is it?”
She looked ashamed.
“I gave it to your father.”
Richard.
Before his death.
Adrian returned to the ledger.
The original was in police evidence, but Daniel had photographed every page.
One entry stood out.
E.H.
October 14.
Safe deposit 417.
E.H.
Emma Hale?
Impossible.
Emma had not been born.
Then Sophia noticed something.
“Evelyn Hale.”
Clara's middle name.
Clara nodded.
“My legal first name is Evelyn. Nobody calls me that.”
The safe deposit box belonged to a private bank.
Inside they found a key card.
And a letter from Richard.
Clara read aloud.
Thomas gave me the archive. Victor does not know where I moved it. Dominic must never find it. Evelyn, if I die, trust my son only when he learns to trust someone more than himself.
Adrian almost laughed.
His father still managed to lecture him from the grave.
The key card opened a storage facility.
Unit 417 contained no archive.
Only a chair.
A projector.
And another recording.
Richard appeared on screen.
Older.
Sick.
“Adrian, if you're watching this, then everything has gone badly.”
Sophia squeezed Adrian's hand.
Richard explained that the archive had been divided into three encrypted pieces.
One entrusted to Victor.
One to Thomas.
One to Michael Bennett.
Victor had his.
Thomas's piece passed to Clara.
Michael's passed to Luca.
All three were required.
Dominic could never access the archive without forcing the three surviving guardians together.
Adrian suddenly understood.
The engagement party.
Luca.
Victor.
Clara.
Dominic had maneuvered them all into one place.
Emma had accidentally interrupted the plan.
Her whisper had exposed Luca too early.
A four-year-old child had disrupted twenty years of preparation.
Richard continued.
“If Dominic succeeds in gathering the pieces, there is one final safeguard.”
The recording distorted.
“What safeguard?” Adrian muttered.
Richard's image flickered.
“The archive can only be opened by—”
Static.
The video failed.
Daniel tried restoring it.
Nothing.
Then another file appeared.
A photograph.
Richard beside a young Victor.
Thomas.
Michael.
And Adrian's mother.
Five guardians.
Not four.
Adrian leaned closer.
His mother was holding something.
A baby.
Adrian.
On the back of the digitized photograph was a handwritten line.
THE LAST KEY IS BLOOD.
Adrian's stomach tightened.
His phone rang.
Luca.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Victor disappeared from the hospital.”
“Dominic?”
“No.”
Luca paused.
“He left voluntarily.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“Where did he go?”
“I don't know.”
Then the security alarm sounded.
Daniel looked at the monitor.
Someone had entered the estate vault.
Adrian ran downstairs.
The vault door was open.
Victor stood inside.
He held the first archive key in one hand.
And Richard Marlowe's pistol in the other.
May you like
“I'm sorry,” Victor said.
Then he aimed the gun directly at Adrian.
