Chapter 4 - THE LOCKED RECORDS ROOM
The records room was behind a paneled wall in my father’s library.
After his death, Margaret claimed water damage had ruined the files and ordered the door sealed.
The brass key opened it on the first try.
The air smelled stale and dry.
Shelves covered every wall. Some were empty. Others held binders labeled with company names I recognized.
Grace stood in the doorway.
“Your father came in here almost every night during his last month.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“No. But he was afraid.”
My father had never seemed afraid of anything.
I switched on the desk lamp.
A legal pad lay beneath a layer of dust. Most pages had been torn out.
One remained.
Three names were written in my father’s block handwriting:
LEONARD SHAW.
MARGARET REEVES.
GRAYBRIDGE.
Underneath them:
IF THE CHILD IS DISPUTED, CHECK THE TRANSFERS.
I felt my stomach tighten.
“Graybridge,” Grace said quietly. “I’ve heard that name.”
“Where?”
She frowned. “Mrs. Reeves receives envelopes with that name on them. She burns them in the kitchen fireplace.”
I opened the filing cabinet.
Empty.
The second drawer was empty too.
The third contained a single blue folder.
Inside were copies of wire transfers from Reeves Family Holdings to Graybridge Advisory LLC.
The amounts were small at first.
Fifty thousand.
Seventy-five thousand.
Then larger.
Three hundred thousand.
Half a million.
The final transfer was dated two days before Emma’s crash.
$900,000.
The authorization carried Leonard Shaw’s digital signature.
The receiving contact was listed only as M.R.
Grace leaned closer.
“That could be Margaret Reeves.”
“Or someone who wants me to think it is.”
I flipped the page.
There was one more document.
A typed memo from my father.
Daniel,
If you are reading this, I was right not to trust the first test.
Do not confront Margaret until you find out what happened to Emma.
I stopped breathing.
May you like
My father had died four months before Emma.
Yet somehow he had known her life was in danger.
