Chapter 6 - Someone Had Been There Recently
The padlock was modern.
Less than five years old.
Frank photographed it.
Julian stared.
“Someone knew this stair existed.”
Rebecca nodded.
“And still had access.”
The police cut the lock.
The lower door opened into an old wine tunnel beneath the mansion.
Julian had played near that building as a child.
Dust covered most of the floor.
But not all.
There were shoe prints.
Recent.
Boxes.
Plastic bins.
A battery lantern.
Someone had used the space.
Police opened the first bin.
Family papers.
Old letters.
Photographs.
Then something stranger.
Newspaper clippings about Elena Santos.
Decades of them.
Mara whispered, “Who kept these?”
The second bin answered.
A folder labeled C.M.
Charles Mercer.
Inside were bank records.
Private investigator invoices.
Payments to a woman named Elena Ramos in Arizona.
Julian stared.
“Elena?”
Rebecca checked.
Ramos could be a married name.
Mara began shaking.
Nobody knew what to say.
Julian turned another page.
Payments began in 1990.
Continued every year.
Then stopped in 2018.
Charles had been sending money to someone for twenty-eight years.
Julian’s anger changed shape.
If Elena was alive, why hide it?
If she was dead, who received the money?
On the back:
E.S. — Tucson — March 2017.
Mara stared.
“That’s her.”
Her aunt.
Alive.
At least nine years earlier.
Julian looked at the tunnel.
He had maintained it.
Then Frank lifted another envelope.
Inside was a plane ticket.
Boston to Phoenix.
Passenger: Charles Mercer.
May you like
Departure date:
Tomorrow morning.
