Chapter 3: Checkmate in the Shadows
The drive back to the Cross estate felt entirely different in the daylight. The Spanish moss didn't look romantic anymore; it looked like cobwebs wrapping around a decaying house.
They parked down the road, slipping through the side gardens. Ethan knew the patrol routes of the security guards, but Sophia was banking on something else entirely.
As they approached the kitchen entrance, the heavy oak door swung open. Maria, the head housekeeper who had been with the family for thirty years, stood there. She had a broom in her hand, but she wasn’t sweeping. She looked at Ethan, then looked at Sophia.
For a terrifying second, Sophia thought Maria would sound the alarm. Instead, Maria stepped aside.
"She went to the lawyers' office an hour ago," Maria whispered, her accent thick, her eyes full of years of unspoken resentment. "She is tearing the house apart looking for the master’s old leather ledger. She thinks he hid it in the library."
"Thank you, Maria," Ethan breathed.
"Don't thank me," Maria said, looking at Sophia. "My daughter was a maid here ten years ago. Margaret fired her without pay because she spilled tea on a rug. Take her down, Miss Sophia."
They slipped inside. The house was dead quiet. They moved quickly to the library, a massive room filled with towering mahogany shelves. It had been ransacked. Books were thrown on the floor; drawers were pulled out. Margaret was desperate.
"If she didn't find it here, where is it?" Ethan muttered, frantically pulling out hidden compartments in his father's old desk.
Sophia stood in the center of the room, closing her eyes. Think like a woman who hates commoners. Think like a woman who is obsessed with pedigree. She opened her eyes and looked up. Above the fireplace hung a massive, arrogant oil portrait of Margaret Cross herself. She was painted wearing the family emeralds, looking down on the room with a victorious smirk.
"Ethan," Sophia said, pointing. "She wouldn't hide her darkest secret behind a book. She would hide it behind herself."
Ethan grabbed a heavy brass fire poker and climbed onto the mantel. He jammed the poker behind the heavy gilded frame and pulled. The portrait groaned, then swung outward on hidden hinges. Behind it was a sleek, modern wall safe.
"A keypad," Ethan groaned. "I don't know the code. We’d need a drill."
"Wait," Sophia said. She looked at the keypad. The numbers 1, 9, 8, and 4 were slightly more worn down than the others. "1984. What happened in 1984?"
Ethan’s eyes widened. "That was the year she married my father. The year she officially became a Cross."
He punched in the numbers. Beep. Click. The safe hissed open. Inside sat a stack of cash, a velvet jewelry box, and at the very bottom, a weathered, burgundy leather ledger. Ethan pulled it out, opening the pages. His face went pale.
"It’s not just the stock transfers," Ethan whispered, his voice trembling. "It’s everything. Bribes to local judges. Hush money to reporters. It’s her entire playbook. With this, she doesn't just lose the company. She goes to federal prison."
Suddenly, the library doors slammed open.
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Margaret Cross stood in the doorway, flanked by two massive private security guards. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure rage.
"I knew you little rats would come back," Margaret spat, pulling a small silver pistol from her purse and pointing it directly at Sophia. "Give me the ledger, Ethan. Or the common little girl dies, and I tell the police she was breaking and entering."
