The drive from Denver to Blackwood had never felt long before. That afternoon every mile seemed deliberate. Victor drove. Samira followed in another vehicle. Derek insisted on coming despite Luna telling him twice to stay behind.
For once, he ignored her without arguing.
I sat beside him in the back.
Neither of us spoke.
The photograph of Thomas remained open on my phone.
My father looked older than the man I remembered, obviously. Gray hair. Deep lines beside his mouth. A scar near his left eyebrow I had never seen before.
But he was standing.
Alive.
At Blackwood.
The place where Richard died.
Luna sat in front, calling Eleanor.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Her posture became more rigid each time.
“Security?”
Victor asked.
“Blackwood’s local system isn’t responding.”
“Power?”
“Backup should be active.”
Derek leaned forward.
“Call the caretaker.”
Luna did.
Nothing.
The silence in the car became unbearable.
I looked at Derek.
“When did you last speak to Voss?”
He stared ahead.
“Two weeks ago.”
“About?”
“Luna’s marriage.”
She turned in her seat.
“What did you ask him to do?”
“Find out whether it was real.”
My anger rose.
“Cameras?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I am not lying.”
“Someone put cameras outside my bedroom.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Voss told me afterward.”
Luna stared at her brother.
“And you continued paying him?”
“No.”
Derek rubbed both hands over his face.
“I ended the arrangement.”
“When?”
“After the penthouse cameras were found.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because admitting I had hired him to investigate you seemed unlikely to improve our relationship.”
“That judgment may be the first sensible thing you’ve done.”
He absorbed it.
Then said, “Voss stopped answering my calls.”
I asked, “And you weren’t worried?”
“I thought he was angry.”
“Now?”
“Now I think he was already moving without me.”
Blackwood came into view through the trees.
The front gate stood open.
Victor slowed.
“That’s wrong.”
He drew his firearm.
Samira’s SUV passed us and entered first.
I suddenly understood that this was no longer an investigation carried out in offices and conference rooms.
Someone had attacked Naomi.
Someone had followed Thomas.
And the estate’s security system had gone dark.
Victor stopped the vehicle near the terrace.
“Stay inside.”
I opened the door.
“No.”
“Adam.”
“My father is here.”
“Possibly.”
“Exactly.”
Luna got out too.
Victor swore.
Derek followed.
“You people are impossible.”
Samira approached from the house.
“Front door open. No visible movement.”
“Caretaker?”
“No sign.”
Victor divided his team.
We entered behind them.
The house felt wrong without voices.
A clock ticked in the main hall.
One lamp had been knocked over.
Derek saw it.
“That belonged in the library.”
Luna looked toward the corridor.
We moved.
The library door stood open.
Inside, books lay scattered across the carpet.
A drawer had been pulled from Richard’s old desk.
Luna stopped at the threshold.
This was where she had found her father.
Her face changed.
I touched her back.
She nodded once.
I did not remove my hand.
Victor searched the room.
“No blood.”
That was supposed to be reassuring.
It barely helped.
Derek walked toward the desk.
“They were looking for something.”
“Again,” Luna said.
I studied the shelves.
One section had been disturbed more than the others.
Not random.
Books removed.
Returned badly.
“What did Richard keep here?”
Derek laughed softly.
“Everything.”
Luna pointed toward a locked glass cabinet.
“Corporate histories.”
“Anything personal?”
“Some journals.”
Victor checked.
The cabinet had not been forced.
Then a sound came from upstairs.
Everyone froze.
A thump.
Then another.
Victor signaled.
Samira headed toward the stairs.
I followed despite his glare.
“Adam.”
“No.”
Luna was beside me.
“Both of you stay behind me.”
We climbed.
The hallway at the top was empty.
One bedroom door moved slightly.
Wind?
No windows were open.
Victor approached.
Pushed it.
Eleanor sat on the floor.
Her wrists were bound.
Tape covered her mouth.
Luna rushed forward.
“Mom.”
Victor stopped her long enough to sweep the room.
Clear.
Then Luna dropped beside Eleanor.
I had never seen fear break through her defenses so completely.
She ripped the tape away carefully.
“Are you hurt?”
Eleanor coughed.
“My shoulder.”
“Who did this?”
She looked toward the hallway.
“Voss.”
Derek appeared in the doorway.
Eleanor’s face changed.
“He knows you came.”
Derek went pale.
“What?”
“He said you would.”
Victor cut the restraints.
“When was he here?”
“Maybe forty minutes ago.”
“Thomas Bennett?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“Yes.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“He came first.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
Eleanor took a breath.
“Thomas arrived through the rear entrance. He had a key.”
“To Blackwood?”
“Richard gave him one years ago.”
Of course.
“What did he want?”
“To find something.”
“The Sterling key?”
Her eyes widened.
“You know about that?”
“Where did he go?”
“Library.”
I turned.
Eleanor caught my sleeve.
“Adam.”
“What?”
“He didn’t know you were coming.”
“That’s fine.”
“No.”
Her grip tightened.
“He was terrified you would.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
“He said once Voss realized Richard had connected you and Luna, both of you became leverage.”
Luna said, “Where did Voss come from?”
“I don’t know. He appeared maybe ten minutes after Thomas.”
“Did they fight?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Downstairs.”
“What happened?”
“Thomas told me to run.”
Eleanor looked ashamed.
“I got upstairs. Voss caught me.”
“Did he hurt Thomas?”
“I heard shouting.”
“What did they say?”
She closed her eyes.
“Something about the key.”
“The Sterling key?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly?”
“Thomas said, ‘Richard made sure you could never open it alone.’”
Victor and I exchanged a look.
Not merely information.
Something requiring multiple people.
“What happened next?” Luna asked.
“I heard glass break.”
Eleanor swallowed.
“Then nothing.”
We returned to the library.
This time I looked differently.
Not for disorder.
For intention.
Richard had created layers.
Box 314.
The hidden key.
Separate letters.
An archive cabinet.
Everything required the right person noticing the right clue.
Luna stood near her father’s desk.
“He said I had to stop thinking like his successor.”
“And start thinking like his daughter,” I said.
She looked around.
“What would that change?”
Derek said, “You would remember things that have nothing to do with Sterling.”
Luna looked at him.
For once, he was helping.
She walked slowly through the room.
Her fingers touched the back of Richard’s chair.
Then the edge of a chess table.
Then an old brass telescope near the window.
“He taught us chess here.”
Derek nodded.
“He cheated.”
“You cheated.”
“I learned from him.”
A tiny smile passed between them.
Gone almost immediately.
Then Luna looked toward the fireplace.
Above it hung a portrait of Richard with both children.
Not corporate.
Family.
Luna stepped closer.
“He hated this painting.”
Derek said, “Mother made him sit for it.”
Eleanor, from the doorway, managed a weak laugh.
“He complained for three months.”
Luna stared at the frame.
“Adam.”
I joined her.
“What?”
“Do you remember the key in my photograph?”
“Yes.”
“Hidden in the frame.”
I understood.
Victor removed the portrait from the wall.
Behind it was nothing.
Derek laughed bitterly.
“Too easy.”
Luna examined the frame itself.
Heavy carved wood.
Older than the portrait.
She pressed along one corner.
Nothing.
Another.
Click.
Everyone froze.
A narrow compartment opened along the bottom.
Inside was not a key.
It was a strip of metal engraved with numbers.
And three names.
LUNA STERLING.
THOMAS BENNETT.
ELEANOR STERLING.
Derek stared.
“Not me.”
Nobody answered.
Beneath the names was a sequence.
4-12-3-8-1.
“What is that?” I asked.
Luna looked at the bookshelves.
“Coordinates?”
Derek shook his head.
“Too short.”
Eleanor said quietly, “Books.”
We turned.
She pointed to the shelves.
“Richard used book codes when we were dating.”
Luna looked almost offended.
“Dad had romantic codes?”
“He was not born sixty.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
Luna gave me a look.
Then moved toward the shelves.
“Five numbers.”
“Five books?” Derek asked.
“Maybe.”
Eleanor thought.
“His system was shelf, position, page, line, word.”
“Which shelf?”
“The first number.”
Luna started counting.
Shelf four.
Twelfth book.
We pulled it.
A biography of Theodore Roosevelt.
Page three.
Line eight.
First word.
Courage.
The word sat there absurdly ordinary.
“Courage,” I said.
Luna frowned.
“That can’t be all.”
Victor examined the metal strip.
“There’s engraving on the back.”
He turned it over.
Another sequence.
2-7-41-5-6.
Shelf two.
Book seven.
Page forty-one.
Line five.
Word six.
CHOICE.
Courage.
Choice.
Eleanor sat in Richard’s old chair.
“There should be more.”
The strip had a tiny indentation near one end.
Victor pressed it.
A third sequence slid outward from inside the metal.
6-3-118-2-4.
We found the book.
Page 118.
Line two.
Fourth word.
HOME.
Courage.
Choice.
Home.
Derek stared.
“That sounds like one of Father’s speeches.”
Luna looked at the room.
“No.”
“What?”
“He used to ask me something when I was a child.”
Her voice became distant.
“What makes a home safe?”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“He asked both of you.”
Derek nodded slowly.
“The right people.”
“No,” Luna said.
“That was your answer.”
“What was yours?”
She looked at the three words.
“Knowing who can enter.”
The room went still.
A key.
Not to a box.
To entry.
Luna walked toward the old built-in liquor cabinet.
Then stopped.
“No.”
She turned toward the fireplace.
“Blackwood has a safe room.”
Derek frowned.
“Where?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
Luna looked at Eleanor.
Her mother nodded slowly.
“Richard showed you when you were little.”
“I thought it was a game.”
She knelt beside the fireplace.
Her fingers moved beneath the mantel.
Found a recessed switch.
The bookshelf beside the fireplace shifted.
Derek stared.
“You have got to be kidding.”
A narrow steel door stood behind it.
No handle.
Only three circular slots.
Victor held up the engraved strip.
Three names.
Luna Sterling.
Thomas Bennett.
Eleanor Sterling.
The Sterling key was not one object.
It was three people.
Or three separate credentials entrusted to them.
Eleanor whispered, “Richard.”
Luna touched the first slot.
A biometric light activated.
Fingerprints.
She placed her thumb.
Green.
Eleanor did the same on the third.
Green.
The middle remained red.
Thomas Bennett.
My father.
I stared at it.
“He has to be here.”
Victor said, “Or someone has to provide his credential.”
A noise came from behind us.
Not inside the house.
Outside.
A door closing.
I ran before anyone could stop me.
Through the corridor.
Out the rear entrance.
Across wet grass.
Near the tree line, a man stood beside the old stone wall.
Gray hair.
Blue plaid shirt.
Exactly like the photographs.
Exactly like memory after twenty-two years had been forced through time.
I stopped.
He did too.
Neither of us moved.
“Adam.”
His voice was older.
But I knew it.
My throat closed.
“You’re alive.”
Thomas Bennett looked at me as though those two words had hurt more than anything else could.
“Yes.”
I crossed the distance.
I did not know whether I meant to hit him or hug him.
In the end, I did neither.
I stopped three feet away.
“You left.”
“I know.”
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Do not cry.”
He looked down.
“Adam—”
“Don’t.”
Twenty-two years came out as one word.
“Why?”
Thomas looked toward Blackwood.
“Because every time I tried to come back, Voss found someone near you.”
I stared.
“He used you as proof that he still knew where my family was.”
“Mom thought you abandoned us.”
“I know.”
“She blamed herself.”
His face crumpled.
“I know.”
“You let her.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You don’t get to call that living.”
He closed his eyes.
I wanted to hate him.
I had practiced hating him for decades.
It had been easier when he was a selfish man who disappeared.
Harder now.
Because the truth was not kinder.
Just more complicated.
Luna reached us.
She stopped beside me.
Thomas looked at her.
“Richard’s daughter.”
“Luna.”
“I know.”
She studied him.
“My father trusted you.”
Thomas gave a tired laugh.
“Eventually.”
“We found the door.”
His face changed.
“Then Voss will come back.”
“Why?”
“Because what’s behind it ends him.”
Derek and Victor approached.
Thomas froze when he saw Derek.
Derek stopped too.
Neither spoke.
Finally Thomas said, “You look like your father.”
Derek’s expression hardened.
“I’m starting to consider that an insult.”
Thomas almost smiled.
Then Victor said, “We need to open the room.”
Thomas looked at me.
“You have questions.”
“Thousands.”
“I’ll answer them.”
“When?”
“If we survive the next hour.”
I hated the sentence.
But he was already walking toward the house.
Inside the library, Thomas placed his thumb against the center reader.
Green.
Three lights.
Luna.
Thomas.
Eleanor.
The steel door unlocked with a heavy internal click.
Luna pulled it open.
A narrow chamber lay beyond.
Shelves.
Files.
Drives.
Boxes.
Richard Sterling had built an archive nobody could access without three people he trusted for entirely different reasons.
Thomas stepped inside first.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Luna asked.
His face had gone pale.
One shelf was empty.
A label remained.
VOSS — ORIGINALS.
Thomas whispered, “No.”
Victor moved beside him.
“Were they supposed to be here?”
“Yes.”
“Who could access this room?”
“Only the three of us.”
Eleanor stared.
“I have never opened it.”
Luna said, “Neither have I.”
Everyone looked at Thomas.
His expression hardened.
“I haven’t been inside since Richard died.”
“Then how are the files gone?”
Nobody answered.
A sound came from the doorway behind us.
A slow clap.
We turned.
Graham Voss stood in the library.
A pistol rested in his hand.
He smiled.
“Because Richard always made the same mistake.”
Victor moved subtly in front of Luna.
Voss raised the weapon.
“No.”
Everyone stopped.
His eyes moved across us.
“He trusted people.”
Then he looked directly at Thomas.
“And Thomas never learned that lesson either.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 13: Voss Had a Gun and the Missing Files, but Thomas Finally Revealed the Secret He Had Protected for Twenty-Two Years
The Morning My Boss Closed Her Office Door, Opened a File About My Life, and Made an Impossible Offer
Part 12 of 26
