Chapter 5 - MOM’S HIDDEN ROOM
Detective Reed sealed the law office as a crime scene.
He photographed the message.
He collected fingerprints.
He requested security footage from surrounding businesses.
But the office cameras had been disabled twenty minutes before the break-in.
Whoever entered knew where the electrical panel was located.
Whoever entered knew exactly which files to take.
Mr. Harris sat in a conference chair staring at the open safe.
“I kept those records for two years,” he said.
“You never made copies?” I asked.
“I did.”
“Where?”
He looked at me.
“Your mother had them.”
My heart began to pound.
“Where would she put them?”
“I don’t know.”
“She lived in the same house for forty years.”
“Did she have a safe?”
“Dad had one in the workshop.”
“Check it.”
Detective Reed sent an officer with us.
The drive back to the house felt longer than usual.
Every passing vehicle looked suspicious.
Every shadow near the road resembled the black SUV.
When we reached the property, the workshop door was open.
I knew I had locked it.
The officer entered first.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Dad’s restored tools hung neatly above the workbench.
The children’s unfinished birdhouses sat on a lower shelf.
Dust floated in the narrow beam of afternoon sunlight.
I crossed to the old wall safe.
Dad had hidden it behind a framed photograph of the four of us.
I entered his birthday.
The safe clicked open.
It was empty.
A square of clean metal showed where something had recently rested.
“Someone beat us here,” Mr. Harris said.
The officer checked the windows.
No broken glass.
No damaged lock.
“They had a key,” he said.
Vanessa still had copies of several old keys.
I had changed the locks on the house but not the workshop.
I called her.
She answered immediately.
“Lose something?”
Her voice was bright.
Almost amused.
“Were you in Dad’s workshop?”
“Our father’s workshop.”
“You took the records.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The police are here.”
“Then tell them hello.”
“Vanessa, this has gone beyond an inheritance dispute.”
“It went beyond that when you humiliated me in court.”
“You forged Mom’s signature.”
“Prove it.”
“We have hospital footage.”
The line became silent.
It lasted only a second.
But it was enough.
“You knew about the video,” I said.
“No.”
“You tried to steal it.”
“You sound paranoid.”
“Did you send those men after Rachel?”
“Who is Rachel?”
“Your attorney’s former assistant.”
Vanessa laughed.
“Daniel’s assistants come and go.”
“She found the emails between you and Dr. Pierce.”
The laughter stopped.
“You should be careful what you believe.”
“You should be careful what you deny.”
Her voice became colder.
“Mom wanted me to have that money.”
“She caught you stealing from her.”
“She gave me access.”
“You took eighty thousand dollars.”
“I borrowed it.”
“You never paid it back.”
“She didn’t need it.”
The casualness of her answer nearly broke something inside me.
Mom had worried about grocery prices while Vanessa used her emergency savings.
Mom had worn the same winter coat for fifteen years.
Mom had asked me whether we could afford a home nurse twice a week.
I had told her we could not.
All that time, Vanessa had already taken enough money to pay for years of help.
“You watched me give up my career,” I said.
“No one asked you to.”
“You knew Mom had money.”
“I knew she had investments.”
“You let me believe we were struggling.”
“You never asked.”
The cruelty was so complete that it created a strange calm inside me.
“You’re going to lose everything.”
“No, Emily.”
Her voice dropped.
“You are.”
The call ended.
I lowered the phone.
The officer had heard most of the conversation.
“We can use that,” he said.
“It isn’t enough.”
“No.”
I looked around the workshop.
Mom had hidden the deed.
She had recorded videos.
She had written a final letter.
She knew Vanessa would fight.
She must have prepared for more than one possibility.
I walked toward Dad’s workbench.
“What are you looking for?” Mr. Harris asked.
“Something Mom wanted me to find.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she knew Vanessa.”
I opened the drawers.
Nails.
Sandpaper.
Pencils.
Old measuring tape.
Nothing.
Then I remembered the birdhouse.
The last one Dad and I had built together was shaped like Mom’s house.
He had made it as an anniversary gift.
After he died, Mom kept it on the bookshelf in the living room.
I hurried inside.
The birdhouse was still there.
I lifted it.
Something rattled inside.
The bottom panel had tiny screws in each corner.
I carried it back to the workshop.
Dad’s smallest screwdriver fit perfectly.
Inside the hollow base was a key.
A paper label was tied around it.
EMILY.
Mr. Harris leaned closer.
“Do you recognize it?”
“No.”
The key was old and narrow.
Not for a modern door.
Not for a safe.
I turned the birdhouse over.
On the underside of the roof, Mom had written a number.
“Fourteen what?” the officer asked.
I looked toward the house.
Mom’s home had twelve rooms if closets were not counted.
Fourteen windows faced the outside.
Fourteen steps led from the first floor to the second.
I walked into the hallway.
There were fourteen stairs.
At the top, I examined the wall.
Mom used to stop on the ninth step near the end of her life.
She would place her hand against the wallpaper and stare.
I had assumed she was tired.
Now I climbed to the ninth step.
The wall sounded hollow.
The officer helped remove a narrow section of trim.
Behind it was a keyhole.
The old key slid inside.
A hidden door opened inward.
Cold air moved from the darkness.
I turned on my phone flashlight.
The room was barely six feet wide.
Shelves covered every wall.
Boxes were labeled with dates.
Financial records.
Medical reports.
Photographs.
Memory cards.
Audio tapes.
Mom had built an archive.
Not only of Vanessa.
Of everyone.
On a small desk sat a video camera and a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Underneath it were the words:
PLAY THE VIDEO FIRST.
I inserted the memory card into the camera.
Mom appeared on the screen.
She wore the blue sweater I had given her for Christmas.
Her hands trembled in her lap.
But her eyes were clear.
“Emily,” she began.
“If you found this room, then Vanessa has already tried to take the Lakeview trust.”
I looked at Mr. Harris.
He stared at the screen.
Mom continued.
“The money is not the real secret.”
“The real secret is how your father died.”
Every breath left my body.
Dad had suffered a heart attack in the workshop.
At least, that was what we had always believed.
Mom looked directly into the camera.
“Your father discovered what Vanessa was doing.”
“He planned to confront her.”
“But he never got the chance.”
She paused.
Tears filled her eyes.
“The night he died, Vanessa was not in California.”
“She was in this house.”
A floorboard creaked behind us.
We turned.
May you like
The workshop door slowly closed.
Then the lights went out.
