Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE THAT LIED
Emergency lights flickered on along the baseboards, staining the white marble with a dim red glow.
David moved before anyone else.
He grabbed Sophie with one arm and pulled Jane behind him with the other.
"Stay with me."
A bodyguard named Cole reached the second-floor landing.
"Backup generator should have started automatically."
"Then somebody disabled it."
David looked toward the corridor where the door had closed.
"Check that room."
Cole drew his weapon but kept it angled toward the floor as he advanced.
The second bodyguard, Mason, appeared below.
"West gate is locked, sir."
"Locked from which side?"
Mason hesitated.
"Inside."
David's eyes sharpened.
"So whoever did this wants us contained."
Jane tightened the blanket around her shoulders.
"Harry used to say the safest prison is the one people mistake for a home."
David turned to her.
"When did he say that?"
"The first night he put me down there."
Cole kicked open the corridor door.
The room beyond was empty.
It was a linen closet.
The back wall, however, stood three inches open.
A hidden service panel.
David had forgotten the old servant passages that ran between the mansion walls.
Harry had not.
Cole shone his flashlight inside.
"Narrow corridor. Fresh footprints."
David looked at Mason.
"Call the county sheriff."
Mason lifted his phone.
No signal.
He tried the landline on a hall table.
Dead.
David swore under his breath.
"The jammer."
Harry had installed a signal jammer in the security room two years earlier for high-profile private meetings.
It was supposed to require two codes.
One belonged to David.
One belonged to Harry.
David stared at the dark security camera above the chandelier.
"He planned for me to come back."
Jane shook her head.
"No."
Her face became even paler.
"He planned for something worse."
She asked David to take them to his private study.
The study door opened with a biometric lock that still had battery backup.
Inside, David closed the steel-lined door and activated the manual bolt.
Sophie sat curled in a leather chair while Jane drank water in small, painful sips.
David pulled a flashlight from a drawer.
"Tell me everything from the beginning."
Jane looked at Sophie.
"She should not hear this."
Sophie lifted her chin.
"I already heard Uncle Harry say he wished Dad never came back."
David's chest tightened.
"When?"
"Two nights ago."
"Who was he talking to?"
"A woman."
Jane and David exchanged a look.
"What woman?"
Sophie frowned, trying to remember.
"She had a pretty voice, but she was mean."
"Did you see her?"
"No."
"What did she say?"
Sophie looked down at her bare feet.
"She said they only needed one more signature."
David leaned back slowly.
One more signature.
His signature.
The final restructuring papers were scheduled to be signed the following morning.
He had returned a day early to surprise Jane and Sophie.
Instead, he had walked into a trap that had apparently been waiting for him.
Jane began speaking.
Three weeks earlier, the package from Arthur Mercer's late attorney had arrived by courier.
Inside was a photocopy of a handwritten ledger kept by Arthur during the last year of his life.
Arthur had been investigating missing money from Mercer Holdings.
Millions had been moved through shell companies.
The transfers had been authorized with codes assigned to Harry's mother, Evelyn Mercer.
Evelyn had died when Harry was sixteen.
David had always believed she left no financial connection to the company.
The ledger suggested otherwise.
Arthur had discovered that someone was using her dormant accounts long after her death.
Then, on the final page, Arthur had written a name.
HARRY.
BESIDE THE GREENHOUSE.
11:37 P.M.
David's father had collapsed at 11:52 p.m.
Harry had always told police he had been asleep in the guest wing.
"That doesn't prove he killed him."
David's voice sounded distant even to himself.
"No."
Jane agreed.
"But it proves he lied."
She explained that the ledger page came with a note.
The original records were hidden in a private vault somewhere on the estate.
Arthur had left two keys.
One with the attorney.
One hidden inside the mansion.
Jane had found the first key in the package.
Harry discovered it two days later.
"How?"
David asked.
Jane looked ashamed.
"Because I confronted him."
David closed his eyes briefly.
Jane had always believed the truth became safer once spoken aloud.
Harry understood the opposite.
"I asked him why your father wrote his name."
Jane said.
"He smiled."
"What did he say?"
Jane stared at the desk.
"He said, 'Arthur wrote many names before he died.'"
David felt a chill.
"Then he asked for the key."
"I told him I had mailed it to someone he would never find."
"Did you?"
Jane shook her head.
"No."
Sophie raised the brass key tied to her ribbon.
"This one?"
Jane's eyes widened.
"That is not the key I had."
David took it from Sophie and examined the teeth.
It was old, hand-cut, and worn smooth with age.
He opened his father's desk drawer and removed a small brass box containing antique estate keys.
One slot was empty.
A tiny engraved label beneath it read: CONSERVATORY FOUNDATION.
David stared at the words.
The greenhouse.
Arthur's note had placed Harry beside the greenhouse fifteen minutes before his death.
Jane whispered.
"Your father didn't hide the records somewhere on the estate."
She looked at the key.
"He hid them under the greenhouse."
A sudden thump came from inside the wall behind David's desk.
Everyone froze.
Another thump followed.
Then a scraping sound.
Cole raised his flashlight toward the bookcase.
The panel behind it moved.
David shoved Sophie and Jane behind the desk.
The hidden door burst open.
Marta stumbled into the room.
Her blouse was torn at one shoulder.
Her hands were bound.
Tape covered her mouth.
Cole pulled it away.
Marta gasped for air.
"He is not leaving."
David crouched in front of her.
"Harry?"
Marta shook her head violently.
"No."
She looked at Jane.
"Harry is not the one in charge."
Jane went perfectly still.
Marta's eyes filled with tears.
"Mrs. Mercer, the woman Sophie heard is already here."
David's voice dropped.
"Who is she?"
May you like
Marta swallowed.
"Your mother."
