Chapter 4 - WHAT EVAN FOUND IN HIS BACKPACK
The doctors kept Evan overnight.
I refused to leave.
By morning, television trucks had gathered outside the hospital.
Someone had leaked Daniel’s arrest.
Reporters knew about the insurance policies.
They knew about the poisoned dinner.
They knew a wealthy family trust was involved.
Fortunately, they did not yet know everything.
They did not know about Alexandra.
Or Conrad Vale.
Or the possibility that my entire marriage had been arranged by a man who had officially died fourteen years earlier.
At 9:20 a.m., Evan asked for his backpack.
“It’s at home,” I said.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I brought it in the ambulance.”
I looked toward the chair.
There was no backpack.
Detective Ortiz checked with the nurses.
Twenty minutes later, an officer found it in the hospital property room.
The dinosaur zipper was broken.
One side was stained with something from the dining room floor.
Evan immediately pulled it toward him.
“What are you looking for?”
He opened the front pocket.
His expression changed.
“It’s gone.”
“What?”
“The card.”
Ortiz stepped closer.
“What card?”
Evan looked at me.
“The one Grandpa gave me.”
My father had died when Evan was four.
“What card?”
“He put it in my birthday book.”
I stared at him.
“Your fifth birthday?”
He nodded.
That had been six months after my father’s death.
Impossible.
“Grandpa wasn’t there.”
“I know.”
“Then how did he give you something?”
“Mr. Ellis did.”
The name pulled at an old memory.
Walter Ellis had been my father’s longtime driver and personal assistant.
After Dad died, Walter retired somewhere in Vermont.
“What did Walter give you?”
“A little envelope.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Evan shrugged.
“He said Grandpa wanted me to have it when I was older.”
“How much older?”
“Ten.”
“Then why did you open it?”
A guilty expression crossed his face.
“Last month.”
Under any other circumstances I might have smiled.
Now I felt only alarm.
“What was inside?”
“A card with numbers.”
Ortiz crouched beside him.
“Can you remember them?”
“No.”
“Was anything written on it?”
Evan nodded.
“Three words.”
“What words?”
He whispered:
“Before the water.”
My pulse jumped.
The lake.
The boat accident.
“What did the card look like?”
“Black.”
“Credit card?”
“No. Metal.”
Ortiz and I looked at each other.
“Where did you keep it?”
“In here.”
Evan tapped the backpack pocket.
“And now it’s missing.”
The hospital immediately locked down the hallway.
Security footage was reviewed.
No stranger had entered Evan’s room.
No unauthorized person had accessed his property.
But the backpack had spent nineteen minutes unattended in the emergency department before being logged.
Nineteen minutes was enough.
Detective Reed arrived carrying coffee and bad news.
“Alexandra’s attorney has filed an emergency motion.”
“For what?”
“To suppress the evidence from the estate.”
“Why?”
“She claims the warrant was defective.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
“Then why does it matter?”
“Because she has expensive lawyers.”
That answer sounded painfully familiar.
Money did not make a person innocent.
It only bought them more doors.
I told him about the missing card.
The reaction was immediate.
“Walter Ellis is alive?”
“As far as I know.”
Reed called someone.
“We’re finding him.”
Two hours later, they did.
Walter had been living outside Burlington.
He answered his door.
He remembered the envelope.
He confirmed my father had given it to him shortly before his death.
But when detectives asked what the metal card opened, Walter refused to answer over the phone.
He insisted on speaking to me directly.
They arranged a secure video call.
When his face appeared on the screen, I barely recognized him.
He had lost weight.
His hair had gone completely white.
But his eyes were the same.
Kind.
Careful.
“Claire.”
“Walter.”
He looked genuinely relieved.
“I hoped you would never need what Richard left.”
“What was the card?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
Walter hesitated.
“Your father made me promise something.”
“What?”
“That I would give it to Evan, not you.”
The words stung.
“Why?”
“Because he believed anyone watching you would search everything you owned.”
I thought of Daniel.
My husband.
Sleeping in my house.
Opening drawers.
Reading mail.
Watching me for nearly a decade.
Dad had been right.
“What does the key open?”
“A private archive.”
“Where?”
“The lake house.”
I stared at him.
“My father sold the lake house.”
“No.”
Walter shook his head.
“He sold the property surrounding it.”
“What?”
“The cottage remained inside a holding company.”
“Why?”
“Because that is where he kept the records Conrad Vale wanted destroyed.”
Reed stepped into view.
“What records?”
Walter’s expression changed when he saw the detective.
“The truth about August 14, 1998.”
My heart pounded.
“Did my father kill Nathaniel?”
Walter’s eyes widened.
“Is that what Alexandra believes?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Oh, Richard.”
“What?”
Walter looked back at me.
“Your father spent twenty years trying to prove Nathaniel was murdered.”
The room went silent.
“By whom?”
Walter opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
His eyes shifted away from the camera.
Somewhere beyond his screen, a sound occurred.
A door.
“Walter?”
He turned.
His face drained of color.
“Someone is here.”
Detective Reed stood.
“Mr. Ellis, lock the door.”
Walter disappeared from view.
The camera shook.
Then fell sideways.
We heard footsteps.
A crash.
I screamed his name.
The feed went black.
For six terrible minutes, we knew nothing.
Then Vermont police reached his house.
Walter was alive.
Shaken.
Bleeding from a cut on his forehead.
But alive.
The intruder had fled.
Nothing obvious had been stolen.
Until Walter checked the small safe beneath his desk.
He called us again.
His voice trembled.
“They took the map.”
“What map?”
“The map to Richard’s archive.”
Reed looked at me.
“Does Conrad know where the lake house is?”
I already knew the answer.
“He worked for my father.”
Reed reached for his phone.
“We need to move.”
But Walter interrupted.
“Wait.”
We looked at the screen.
A faint smile appeared on his bruised face.
“Richard never trusted paper maps.”
“What did he leave?”
Walter looked directly at me.
“A second key.”
“Where?”
“In the one place Conrad Vale would never search.”
May you like
He paused.
“Richard’s grave.”
