Chapter 3 - The Missing RecorderEthan drove back to the estate with Officer Brooks while Sarah remained overnight for observation.
Arthur stayed with her.
Not because anyone asked.
Because he had spent forty years knowing when a house was unsafe.
Sarah watched him straighten the hospital blanket for the third time.
“You can sit.”
“I am sitting.”
“You’re standing.”
Arthur looked down.
“So I am.”
She almost smiled.
Then her face tightened.
“Why did she do it?”
Arthur did not answer quickly.
“That is the right question.”
“You know something.”
He looked toward the hallway.
“I know Mrs. Vance has been afraid of this baby since you announced the pregnancy.”
Sarah felt cold.
“She pretended to be happy.”
“She is very good at pretending.”
At the estate, Officer Brooks found no sign of forced entry around the old clock.
Whoever removed the recorder knew exactly where it was.
Ethan called Eleanor.
She answered immediately.
“My son.”
“Where is the recorder?”
A pause.
“What recorder?”
“Don’t.”
His voice shook.
“Don’t do that thing where you make me explain the truth until I’m too tired to fight.”
Silence.
Then Eleanor said:
“Sarah has changed you.”
“No. I’m asking a question.”
“She nearly fell because she was emotional.”
“Where is the recorder?”
Eleanor hung up.
Brooks looked at him.
“That sounded productive.”
Ethan almost laughed.
Then a housekeeper, Maria Lopez, approached.
She had worked for the family eleven years.
“I saw Mrs. Vance in the clock room after the ambulance left.”
Brooks turned.
“Alone?”
“No.”
“With who?”
Maria hesitated.
“Mr. Shaw.”
Ethan frowned.
“Martin?”
Martin Shaw was the Vance family’s chief financial officer.
He had no reason to be at the house.
No reason to know about the recorder.
Unless this was bigger than the shove.
Brooks asked:
“Did they carry anything?”
Maria nodded.
“A black metal box.”
The missing recorder.
Ethan’s phone buzzed.
A message from Martin:
YOUR MOTHER IS UPSET. DON’T MAKE FAMILY BUSINESS PUBLIC UNTIL WE TALK.
Ethan stared at the screen.
Officer Brooks read it over his shoulder.
“Family business?”
Ethan whispered:
“My wife was almost killed.”
Then another message arrived.
This one from Sarah.
Arthur remembered something.
CALL ME.
Ethan called.
Sarah answered on the first ring.
Her voice was tight.
“Ethan, Arthur says your grandfather left a sealed instruction for the day the first Vance grandchild was born.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“What instruction?”
Arthur took the phone.
“I don’t know.”
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“Then why does it matter?”
“Because your mother tried to make me destroy it twenty years ago.”
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