Chapter 7 - The Death Date
The letter said the safe opened with the day someone died.
Daniel claimed that date was tomorrow.
July twenty ninth.
I searched my father’s records until sunrise.
Emma stayed beside me at the dining table while Mrs. Ellis slept in the guest room. Olivia sat across from us, wrapped in Emma’s blue comforter.
“I am sorry,” Olivia whispered.
Emma kept reading.
“You did not throw me out.”
“I took your room.”
“Grandpa made you think you had to.”
Olivia’s eyes filled with tears.
“He said your mom was going to lose the house. He said if I helped move your things, he would let my mother come home.”
I looked up.
“Gerald knows where Lauren is?”
Olivia nodded.
“He said she was not really in rehabilitation anymore.”
Daniel had told me his sister remained at a private treatment center near Salem. We sent money every month.
Marlene looked stricken.
“Gerald handles the payments.”
I called the facility.
Lauren Hart had been discharged eleven months earlier.
No forwarding address was listed.
At eight in the morning, a detective returned Daniel’s phone to me after obtaining the data they needed.
There were dozens of messages between Daniel and Gerald.
Most involved the deed, the guardianship papers, and my suspension.
But the final message was from an unknown number.
Open the safe before midnight or Rebecca dies.
Attached was a photograph.
An older woman sat in a metal chair with her wrists tied.
She had gray streaks in dark hair and a scar above one eyebrow.
Around her neck hung a silver pendant identical to one my father had kept in his desk.
Written on the wall behind her was a date.
July twenty ninth.
Emma touched the screen.
“She looks like you.”
My throat closed.
Marlene whispered the name.
“Rebecca.”
The message included an address near the industrial waterfront.
Officer Ortiz warned me not to go. Detectives were already preparing to search the location.
Then a second message arrived.
Police involvement ends her life.
A video began playing.
Rebecca lifted her head.
“Rachel,” she said weakly. “Thomas kept you safe. Do not give Gerald the ledger.”
A man stepped into view behind her.
Only his hand was visible.
A gold ring shaped like a lion covered one finger.
Marlene gasped.
“What?”
“That ring belonged to Gerald’s brother, Vincent.”
“You said he was a detective.”
“He died eight years ago.”
The video continued.
Rebecca looked directly into the camera.
“The safe is not locked by a number. It is locked by a voice.”
The man struck her chair.
The video ended.
Emma looked toward the basement door.
“Whose voice?”
I remembered the bedtime song my father used to sing to me.
He had recorded it on an old cassette after his cancer diagnosis so I could still hear him after he was gone.
I ran to the study.
The cassette case was empty.
Olivia stood in the doorway.
“Grandpa took something from that drawer last week.”
“What?”
“A tape.”
Marlene covered her face.
Gerald already possessed the voice required to open the safe.
And he no longer needed ownership of the house if someone inside let him return.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
We all looked toward the staircase.
May you like
Emma’s bedroom door slowly opened.
Continue to the next part: Someone has entered the house while police are outside, and Olivia recognizes the footsteps before anyone sees the intruder.
