Chapter 15 - The Day Mark Almost Quit
By morning, news of the stolen envelope had spread through Briar Glen.
An online headline called Mark's case a bitter fight over a family inheritance.
Another claimed he'd staged his daughter's rescue to pressure his mother.
Mark shut the laptop before Lily could see the photographs.
Samir called with worse news.
"Without the original, the judge may preserve the records but refuse to block the sale. Pike says our key document never existed."
"An officer photographed it."
"Yes, and that helps. But Sloane is attacking the source, the chain of custody, and every witness we have."
Mark drove to Daniel's house.
His cousin answered the door looking as though he hadn't slept.
"They said they'd use my gambling debts against me in the custody hearing," Daniel admitted. "I thought I was protecting my boys."
"So you took the one thing protecting mine?"
Daniel cried without looking at him.
"I handed it to Pike. I don't have it anymore."
Mark walked away before he said something he could never take back.
At home, Lily was building a small stone tower on the living-room rug.
"Is the bad thing over?" she asked.
He sat beside her and shook his head.
"Not yet."
She carefully put one pebble on top of another.
"Mommy used to say you can start again when something falls."
Mark watched the stones settle.
He'd treated the missing ledger like the whole case, as if the truth lived inside one envelope.
But Claire had spent months looking for ways to prove it.
He picked up her two recipe cards and placed them side by side.
On the back of the second, almost erased beneath a flour stain, was a tiny drawing of the mansion at noon.
A shadow stretched not toward the well, but toward the greenhouse.
May you like
And under that drawing Claire had written one more sentence:
THE COPY IS FOR COURT. THE ORIGINAL IS FOR THE CHILDREN.
