Chapter 3 - The Housewarming
Two weeks later, Flynn threw a party in my grandfather's house.
Technically, it wasn't mine anymore.
That was the point.
I was recovering at a small rental apartment overlooking the river when photographs began appearing online.
Champagne.
Caterers.
Luxury cars parked along the circular driveway.
Cordelia standing beneath my grandfather's chandelier with a crystal glass raised above her head.
Flynn smiling beside her.
My cousin texted me a screenshot.
Are you seeing this?
I answered with one word.
Yes.
Then I turned off my phone.
Phoebe sat across from me at the dining table.
“Doesn't that bother you?”
“More than I expected.”
“You don't have to pretend with me.”
I looked toward the window.
“I spent every summer there.”
I remembered my grandfather teaching me to fish from the dock.
Christmas mornings beside the stone fireplace.
My grandmother's piano.
The marks on the pantry doorway where Grandfather measured my height every birthday.
“Yes,” I admitted. “It hurts.”
Phoebe nodded.
“But?”
“But they're celebrating too early.”
At Briar House, Cordelia was doing exactly that.
According to one guest who later described the evening, she told everyone Flynn had “secured his rightful share” during the divorce.
She even joked that I'd finally learned my place.
At approximately nine fifteen, Flynn opened a bottle of champagne from my grandfather's private cellar.
At nine thirty-two, the lights in the east wing went out.
At nine thirty-five, an alarm began sounding somewhere beneath the house.
Not a burglar alarm.
Something older.
Something nobody at the party recognized.
Flynn called the caretaker.
Mr. Danner refused to enter.
“Why?” Flynn demanded.
“Because Mr. Hale told me never to open the lower east corridor.”
“I'm the owner now.”
“I know.”
“Then give me the key.”
Mr. Danner apparently stared at him for several seconds.
“That's exactly why I can't.”
Flynn called me at 9:47.
I watched his name appear.
I didn't answer.
He called again.
Then again.
Finally a voicemail appeared.
“Sloan, call me.”
I deleted it.
Phoebe raised an eyebrow.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
At 10:12, Flynn called her.
She answered on speaker.
“Mr. Mercer.”
“What the hell is underneath this house?”
Phoebe glanced at me.
“I can't disclose information reserved for the property's legal owner except through the procedure established by Everett Hale.”
“I am the legal owner.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
“You'll receive instructions tomorrow morning.”
A pause.
“What instructions?”
“Good night, Mr. Mercer.”
She disconnected.
I stared at her.
“You enjoyed that.”
“A little.”
The following morning, a courier delivered a steel lockbox to Briar House.
Inside was a key.
A map.
And another letter.
Flynn called Phoebe immediately.
This time she instructed him to open the east-wing basement himself.
Ownership mattered.
The covenant was explicit.
The legal owner had to be present when the sealed chamber was opened.
Cordelia went with him.
Mr. Danner refused.
The corridor beneath the east wing was narrower than Flynn expected.
At its end stood a steel door concealed behind old wooden shelving.
The key fit.
Flynn opened it.
Beyond was not a treasure vault.
It was an archive.
Shelves.
Hundreds of boxes.
Blueprints.
Ledgers.
Hard drives.
Legal records.
Photographs.
And in the center of the room stood a steel table holding a red binder.
Flynn opened it.
The first page contained four words.
BRIAR WATER REMEDIATION TRUST.
The second contained a number.
$48,700,000.
Flynn stared at it.
Cordelia gasped.
“Forty-eight million?”
For several glorious seconds, they thought they'd discovered a fortune.
Then Flynn turned the page.
His face changed.
The money wasn't waiting to be inherited.
It was money that had to be spent.
Decades earlier, my grandfather had purchased the lake property after discovering that a defunct manufacturing company had contaminated part of the surrounding groundwater.
The company collapsed.
Litigation dragged on.
Grandfather eventually acquired several parcels and created a privately funded remediation trust to protect nearby families and restore the land.
The lake house sat at the legal center of the arrangement.
And Grandfather had structured the property so that whoever knowingly accepted full ownership also became successor steward of the trust.
Not personally liable for forty-eight million dollars.
Grandfather wasn't a monster.
But responsible.
Legally.
Publicly.
Administratively.
The estate could not simply be flipped to a developer.
It couldn't be demolished without environmental review.
Certain shoreline parcels couldn't be sold independently.
And most importantly, the owner was required to cooperate with regulators and preserve the records stored beneath the house.
Flynn had wanted an easy five-million-dollar trophy.
He had inherited a job.
My phone rang at 8:16 that morning.
Flynn.
I answered.
He didn't say hello.
“What did you do?”
I leaned back.
“I gave you what you wanted.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You set me up.”
“No.”
“You deliberately transferred this nightmare to me.”
“You had the paperwork.”
“Nobody reads eighty pages of legal garbage!”
“Phoebe told you there were obligations.”
“You knew I wouldn't understand.”
“No, Flynn.”
My voice became quieter.
“I knew you wouldn't care enough to understand.”
Silence.
Then Cordelia grabbed the phone.
“You manipulative little—”
I ended the call.
Phoebe smiled.
But I didn't.
Because something in Grandfather's letter bothered me.
The truth is beneath the east wing.
We had found the archive.
We had found the trust.
But that wasn't the truth.
Not all of it.
That afternoon, Mr. Danner called me.
“Sloan?”
“Yes?”
“I think you need to come back.”
“I can't.”
“Then send Phoebe.”
“Why?”
He lowered his voice.
“Flynn found another door.”
I sat upright.
“What door?”
“One that wasn't on the map.”
A chill traveled through me.
“Did he open it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because there's no lock.”
I waited.
Mr. Danner continued.
“Only a keypad.”
My grandfather hated electronics.
He trusted keys.
Paper.
Things that couldn't be hacked.
“What does the screen say?”
May you like
Mr. Danner took a breath.
“It's asking for your name.”
