Chapter 4 - the safe that was already empty
Margaret called the police while Ethan drove.
Vanessa sat in the back seat of Ethan’s car, still wearing her light-blue dinner dress. No one spoke during the journey from Malibu to Pacific Palisades.
Every few seconds Margaret checked the security feed.
The camera showed Lydia Voss moving calmly through the study. She did not search randomly. She knew where the safe was hidden behind the framed map of Greece.
She entered the code on her second attempt.
Then the feed went black.
“The camera was disabled,” Margaret said.
“How did she know the code?” Ethan asked.
Margaret did not answer.
The code had been the date Thomas proposed to her.
Only three people had ever known it.
Margaret.
Thomas.
And Helen.
But Helen had died in a car accident twenty-eight years earlier.
When they arrived, two police vehicles were already outside. Officers searched the property while Margaret waited in the foyer.
There was no sign of forced entry.
Lydia had used the side door.
The electronic lock records showed that she had entered with an old permanent access code created under Thomas’s name.
Margaret had never deleted it.
In the study, the map of Greece hung crooked on the wall.
The safe door was open.
Inside were empty shelves.
Ethan looked at his mother.
“What did you keep there?”
“Letters. Old passports. Personal records from the first years of the company.”
“Documents about Dad?”
“Yes.”
“And Aunt Helen?”
Margaret glanced at him.
“You never met her.”
“No, but I know she helped you and Dad start Hale Meridian.”
“That is what we told people.”
Ethan waited.
Margaret walked to the window.
“Helen invested the first money. She introduced Thomas to several hotel owners in Europe. Without her, the company would not have existed.”
“What happened between you?”
Margaret watched officers search the garden below.
“She became convinced Thomas was hiding money.”
“Was he?”
“I didn’t believe her.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“At the time, I thought she was jealous. Thomas and I were engaged. The company was growing. Helen had begun behaving unpredictably.”
“What does that mean?”
“She accused people without evidence. She followed Thomas. She entered our office at night. Then she claimed someone was using her signature to purchase properties.”
Ethan stared at her.
“Her signature?”
Margaret turned from the window.
“Three weeks before she died, Helen told me Thomas and Martin Voss were moving money through private estates.”
“And you ignored her.”
The accusation was painful because it was true.
“I told her to rest. I thought she was overwhelmed.”
“How did she die?”
“She drove off a mountain road during a storm.”
“Was anyone else in the car?”
“No.”
“Were you certain?”
Margaret hesitated.
The police had identified Helen through dental records because the vehicle had burned.
Margaret had never seen her sister’s face.
Before she could respond, an officer called from the hallway.
“Mrs. Hale, we found something.”
He led them downstairs to the kitchen.
A black coat lay on the floor beside the side entrance. Under it was a wig with short dark hair.
The intruder had changed her appearance.
A trail of wet footprints continued toward the lower garage, where a service door stood open.
On the counter was the brass key Vanessa had placed on the villa desk.
Margaret had left it behind in the rush.
Yet somehow it was now inside her home.
Beside it lay a folded note.
Ethan opened it.
The message had been typed.
Silver Briar belongs to the person Thomas chose. Stop searching, or your son will learn why his father died.
Vanessa read it over Ethan’s shoulder.
Her face lost color.
“She knows we’re together.”
Margaret looked at her.
“She knew we would come here.”
One of the officers entered the kitchen carrying a small evidence bag.
“We found this inside the safe.”
It contained a photograph.
Margaret recognized it immediately.
Thomas stood beside Martin Voss on the front steps of Silver Briar. Both men were younger, dressed in casual clothes, smiling toward the camera.
Between them stood Helen.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date.
October 14, 1998.
The year before Helen died.
Below the date were six words.
The house belongs to all three.
Ethan turned the photograph over again.
“If they owned Silver Briar in 1998, how was it purchased six weeks ago?”
Margaret studied the image.
“It may have been sold and repurchased.”
“Or hidden,” Vanessa said.
Everyone looked at her.
She pointed toward the photograph.
“That isn’t the Silver Briar I was shown.”
Margaret frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“The house I saw in the listing was modern. Glass walls. Ocean view. This house is old.”
Ethan enlarged the digital photograph on his phone.
Behind Thomas, Martin, and Helen stood a stone mansion covered in ivy.
“Maybe it was rebuilt,” he said.
“No,” Margaret replied.
She knew the architecture.
She knew the trees.
She had seen the place once, long ago, when Helen had taken her on a drive north and begged her to look inside.
Margaret had refused.
“This photograph was not taken in Malibu,” she said.
“Then where?” Ethan asked.
Margaret looked at the handwritten date.
“Monterey.”
Daniel called before she could say more.
“We found the current owner of the Malibu property,” he said.
“Who is it?”
“That’s the problem. According to the county record, Silver Briar has belonged to Margaret Hale for twenty-seven years.”
Margaret looked again at the note beside the key.
May you like
Twenty-seven years.
The exact number of years since Helen’s death.
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