Chapter 2 - Daniel’s Missing Book
Two sheriff’s deputies arrived eleven minutes later.
Margaret spent those eleven minutes trying to rebuild her story.
By the time Deputy Morales stepped out of his cruiser, she had transformed herself from an enraged grandmother into a shaken sixty-seven-year-old woman who claimed she had been misunderstood.
“I was protecting the boy from the road,” she said.
Linda folded her arms.
“The ditch is between the yard and the road.”
Margaret ignored her.
“I grabbed him because he was running.”
“No,” Ethan said quietly.
Claire squeezed his shoulder.
Deputy Morales crouched so he was eye level with Ethan.
“You can tell me exactly what happened.”
Ethan did.
He did not embellish.
He did not need to.
Linda transferred the original video to the deputy while another officer photographed Ethan’s muddy clothes and the marks beginning to appear where Margaret had gripped his sleeve.
Then Morales asked the question Claire had been waiting for.
“Mrs. Reed, may we see the brass key?”
Margaret’s hand went to her coat pocket.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
“You claimed it belonged to you.”
“It does.”
“Then showing it should be easy.”
Margaret looked toward Claire.
“You really want to humiliate Daniel’s mother in front of police?”
Claire felt the familiar sting.
Margaret had used Daniel’s name like that ever since the funeral.
Daniel would be ashamed.
Daniel trusted me.
Daniel wanted family unity.
Daniel wouldn’t recognize you anymore.
For fourteen months, grief had made Claire vulnerable to every version of the sentence.
Not tonight.
“Show them the key.”
Margaret slowly removed it.
A small rectangular brass tag hung from the ring.
Stamped into it were four characters.
R-417.
Deputy Morales photographed it.
“Do you know what it opens?”
“No.”
Claire answered before Margaret could.
“Then why were you terrified Ethan had it?”
Margaret’s jaw tightened.
Morales told Margaret he was documenting the incident and instructed her not to contact Ethan while the matter was reviewed. Claire intended to seek an emergency protective order the following morning.
Margaret laughed when she heard that.
“You think a judge will believe you’re protecting him?”
Claire stared at her.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
She walked toward her Mercedes.
Before getting inside, Margaret turned.
“Claire, listen carefully. Give me one opportunity to fix this privately.”
“There is nothing private about threatening my son.”
“I am warning you because Daniel can’t.”
Then she drove away.
That sentence followed Claire into the house.
Linda stayed while Ethan showered.
Buddy refused to leave the bathroom door.
Claire placed Ethan’s muddy coat into an evidence bag the deputy had given her, then found Linda sitting at the kitchen island.
“Send me the video too.”
“I already did.”
Claire checked.
Three copies now existed: Linda’s phone, Claire’s phone, and the sheriff’s evidence system.
Margaret could not make all three disappear.
“I should have noticed,” Claire whispered.
Linda frowned.
“Noticed what?”
“How much Ethan hated being alone with her.”
“You trusted family.”
“I ignored him.”
“No. You misread him.”
Claire looked toward the stairs.
“That distinction probably doesn’t matter to an eight-year-old.”
Linda did not answer.
Claire appreciated that.
At nine thirty, Ethan came downstairs wearing pajamas.
Buddy followed.
Claire made hot chocolate.
For several minutes, Ethan stared into his mug.
Then Claire asked, “Tell me about the key.”
Ethan’s eyes moved toward Buddy.
“I was brushing him.”
“When?”
“This afternoon. Grandma came over before you got home.”
Margaret had told Claire she would arrive at five.
Claire had reached the house at four twenty-three.
“How early?”
“I don’t know. The clock said three something.”
“What happened?”
“Buddy kept scratching his collar. I took it off. There was a little tear.”
“The inside seam?”
Ethan nodded.
“I put my finger in it and felt metal.”
Claire remembered Daniel’s needle flashing beneath a kitchen light.
Insurance.
Her throat tightened.
“Did your dad ever tell you something was there?”
“No.”
“What about the blue book?”
Ethan hesitated.
“Grandma asked me where it was.”
“I heard that.”
“She asked before Linda started recording too.”
Claire leaned closer.
“What exactly did she say?”
Ethan looked frightened.
“You won’t get mad?”
“Not at you.”
“She said Dad hid a book because he was sick and confused. She said Uncle Grant needed it because it belonged to the company.”
Reed Development Group.
Daniel’s family company.
Founded thirty-eight years ago by Daniel’s father, Charles Reed, it had grown from a two-person construction office into a Virginia real-estate and warehouse company worth tens of millions.
After Charles died, Margaret became chair.
Daniel became chief executive.
His younger brother Grant ran acquisitions.
Claire had never worked there.
After Daniel’s death, she inherited most of his personal estate and became trustee of Ethan’s shares.
Margaret and Grant had hated that arrangement from the day the will was read.
“What else?”
Ethan lowered his voice.
“I told her Dad once showed me his blue book.”
Claire froze.
“When?”
“Before he died.”
“Where?”
“In the garage.”
“What did he say?”
Ethan thought.
“He said numbers could tell stories even when people lied.”
That sounded exactly like Daniel.
“What happened to the book?”
“I don’t know.”
“But Grandma thought you did.”
Ethan nodded.
“And she said something about Uncle Grant?”
“She said, ‘Grant will kill me if the boy finds that book first.’”
Linda and Claire exchanged a look.
It might have been an expression.
It might have been literal fear.
Either way, Margaret believed the book contained something dangerous.
Claire walked upstairs to Daniel’s old office.
She had barely touched it since his death.
His desk still held the fountain pen Ethan had given him for Father’s Day. A framed photograph showed Daniel kneeling beside Buddy while Ethan laughed.
Claire opened the bottom drawer.
Empty.
The blue notebook had once lived there.
She remembered Daniel writing in it late at night.
Not business plans.
Numbers.
Dates.
Company names.
The week before he died, she had asked what was wrong.
“Grant and Mom think being family means never asking where the money went,” he had said.
Claire had thought it was another argument over a development deal.
Now she opened Daniel’s locked filing cabinet.
The lock was scratched.
Freshly.
She stepped backward.
“Linda?”
Her neighbor appeared in the doorway.
Claire pointed.
“I haven’t opened that cabinet since the funeral.”
Linda examined the scratches.
“You think Margaret came in?”
“She was here alone for almost an hour.”
Claire pulled the cabinet open.
Files leaned at crooked angles.
Someone had searched them.
On the bottom shelf sat a black document box.
Its lid was open.
Inside should have been Daniel’s personal trust papers.
Instead there was only a folded yellow note.
Claire picked it up.
Three words had been written in Daniel’s handwriting.
Don’t trust Pierce.
Claire stared at the name.
Samuel Pierce was the Reed family attorney.
He had drafted Daniel’s will.
He had handled Claire’s estate paperwork.
May you like
And he was the man she had planned to call first thing in the morning.
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