Chapter 6 - Behind the Brass Door
The founder's archive had not been opened in almost three years.
The old key turned with a heavy click.
Lily stood beside me.
Behind us were Rebecca, Peter, and Detective Marcus Hale from the financial crimes unit.
The door opened.
Rows of steel cabinets disappeared into the dim room.
But Ethan wasn't interested in old records.
He had been searching for one specific document.
Margaret's trust.
After her cancer diagnosis, Margaret had reorganized our estate.
I had respected every instruction she left.
Including one that had always seemed strange.
Do not disclose Lily's full beneficial ownership until her thirty-fifth birthday—or until circumstances require protection.
Lily was thirty-three.
Circumstances had arrived early.
Rebecca opened the sealed file.
Lily read silently.
Then looked at me.
“I own part of Calloway House?”
“Not part.”
She kept reading.
Her knees almost gave way.
Upon Margaret's death, forty-nine percent of Calloway House had been placed into an irrevocable trust for Lily.
I retained voting control while alive.
But economically, nearly half the building already belonged to my daughter.
Ethan hadn't needed my fortune.
He needed hers.
And if he could gain influence over her trust while convincing lenders I was incapable of managing the property, he could potentially leverage Lily's beneficial interest as part of a much larger financing scheme.
Lily sank into a chair.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Detective Hale answered.
“Probably Charles.”
The detective opened another file.
Charles Mercer had apparently spent years tracking Calloway properties.
Ethan's relationship with Lily began only weeks after Charles obtained information about Margaret's estate through a former law-firm employee.
Lily whispered:
“My entire marriage…”
I crouched beside her.
“Don't decide what every moment meant based on what you're learning tonight.”
She looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Ethan may have approached you for the wrong reason and still experienced real things afterward. Human beings are complicated.”
“Are you defending him?”
“No.”
I took her hand.
“I'm protecting you from believing your whole life was fake.”
She cried quietly.
Then Detective Hale received a call.
Charles Mercer had vanished from his Connecticut home.
But investigators had recovered something.
A handwritten list.
Seventeen Calloway properties.
Beside sixteen names were numbers.
Beside Calloway House were two words:
FINAL PIECE.
And underneath:
LILY SIGNS MONDAY.
It was Friday.
Whatever Ethan and Charles had planned wasn't over.
May you like
They had seventy-two hours left.
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