Chapter 11 - The Dead Man's Folder
Samuel Dean survived the crash by inches.
A fisherman pulled him from the river before the car sank. At the hospital, he told Brooks someone had loosened his steering linkage.
He also told her he had hidden Adrian's new will before leaving his office.
"Where?" Adrian asked.
Dean looked at Maya.
"With someone nobody in the Mercer family would think to search."
Maya blinked. "Me?"
Dean nodded.
Three weeks earlier, he had visited the estate and slipped a sealed envelope into the false bottom of a cleaning supply cabinet.
"I suspected Evelyn was monitoring my office," he said. "I needed a neutral witness."
Maya hurried home with Brooks.
The cabinet had been emptied.
The envelope was gone.
On the shelf sat a single pearl earring.
Evelyn's.
Adrian called his mother.
She answered calmly.
"You always were dramatic."
"Where is the will?"
"Come home and ask me yourself."
"The police are there."
"Not where I am."
Adrian froze.
Brooks checked the officer assigned to Evelyn.
He was unconscious in the pantry.
Evelyn had escaped through an old servants' tunnel beneath the wine cellar.
Maya stared at Adrian.
"Where does the tunnel go?"
He looked toward the north woods.
"The old gatehouse."
They arrived ten minutes later.
The gatehouse was empty.
But on the table lay the missing will.
Burned around the edges.
Beside it was a baby monitor transmitting live audio.
A baby crying.
Adrian's face drained of color.
He checked his arms instinctively.
May you like
Caleb was not with him.
Caleb was back at the main house.
