Chapter 3 - THE EMPTY LEDGER
Ella did not touch the notebook.
She remained in the doorway and called Adrian.
He arrived twelve minutes later with two uniformed officers. They searched the apartment, stairwell, roof, and alley.
No intruder was found.
The blue notebook contained no fingerprints.
Under ultraviolet light, however, faint impressions appeared on several pages. Someone had written in another book placed over it, leaving pressure marks behind.
Adrian photographed the impressions.
“Can they be recovered?” Ella asked.
“Possibly.”
“Here?”
“No. I know a forensic examiner outside the department.”
Ella paced beside the kitchen counter.
“Why leave it blank?”
“To send a message.”
“What message?”
“That someone found the real ledger first.”
Adrian closed the notebook inside an evidence bag.
“Or they want you to believe they did.”
Ella stopped.
“You think it might still be in the mansion.”
“I think your anonymous caller believed it was.”
A floorboard creaked in the hallway.
Both turned.
Adrian reached for his weapon.
The sound came again.
A small figure appeared near the open door.
Ella recognized the girl immediately.
“Lena?”
Lena Park had grown up in the apartment across the hall. She was sixteen, serious, and far more observant than most adults.
She held her phone against her chest.
“I saw the person who went into your apartment,” Lena said.
Adrian lowered his hand.
“Did you record them?”
Lena nodded.
She opened a video captured through her peephole.
A man in a maintenance uniform walked toward Ella’s apartment. His face was turned away, but his left hand carried a distinctive silver ring engraved with a hawk.
Ella knew that ring.
It belonged to Thomas Rourke, her father’s longtime head of security.
“Can you send me that?” Adrian asked.
Lena hesitated.
Ella stepped closer.
“It’s okay.”
The girl transferred the video.
“Did he see you?” Ella asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“You need to stay somewhere else tonight.”
“My mom’s working.”
“Call her.”
Lena looked frightened now.
Ella took her hand.
“This isn’t your fault. You helped us.”
After Lena returned to her apartment, Adrian replayed the recording.
“Rourke was a military contractor before your father hired him,” he said.
“He also taught Mark how to shoot.”
“Friendly family.”
“My father values people who obey without questions.”
Adrian looked toward the window.
“You can’t stay here.”
“I have another place.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere my father doesn’t know about.”
“Does such a place exist?”
“It did until you asked.”
Ella packed one bag.
Her alternate residence was an art studio rented under a small company she had formed years earlier. It occupied the top floor of an old textile building near the river.
Only Daniel had known about it.
When they were younger, Ella painted constantly. Charles considered art a waste of time, so Daniel helped her hide supplies and save money for classes.
After Daniel died, she stopped painting.
The studio became a storage room for documents related to his case.
Adrian walked between tall shelves filled with labeled boxes.
“Seven years of research,” he said.
“Seven years of being called obsessed.”
“Both can be true.”
Ella almost laughed.
She opened a metal cabinet containing maps, financial records, family photographs, and newspaper clippings.
At the center was a large blueprint of the Donovan mansion.
Adrian moved closer.
“You have architectural plans?”
“My grandfather built the original house in 1958. My father expanded it three times.”
Ella pointed toward the east wing.
“This was Daniel’s room. The study is here. My father’s office is below it.”
“What’s this narrow space behind the walls?”
“Old service corridors. Most were sealed during renovations.”
“Most?”
“Daniel found one when we were children. It connects the library to the wine cellar.”
Adrian studied the blueprint.
“If he hid the ledger, he might have used the corridor.”
“That’s what I’ve always thought.”
“Why didn’t you search it?”
“My father changed every lock after the funeral. Then he placed guards around the estate.”
“And now he’s inviting you inside.”
“Exactly.”
Ella removed an old brass key from the cabinet.
Daniel had given it to her on her twenty-fifth birthday.
“For all the doors Dad doesn’t want us opening,” he had joked.
She had forgotten the gift until after his death.
The key did not fit any ordinary lock in the mansion.
Perhaps it belonged to something hidden.
Adrian pointed to a room on the blueprint.
“What is this?”
Ella looked at the marked rectangle beyond the old library.
“There’s no room there.”
“The dimensions suggest there is.”
She measured the blueprint with her finger.
He was right.
A space almost twelve feet wide existed between the library wall and the exterior stone.
“Daniel knew the house better than anyone,” Ella said.
“And your father is hosting hundreds of people. Security will be focused on the grounds.”
“It may be our only chance.”
Adrian shook his head.
“Entering a hidden room during a gala is not a plan.”
“It’s the beginning of one.”
Her phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
YOUR MOTHER KNOWS WHERE DANIEL HID THE KEY.
Ella stared at the words.
A second message followed.
SHE WILL NOT TELL YOU WILLINGLY.
Then a photograph loaded.
It showed Vivian Donovan leaving a private medical clinic that morning.
May you like
Beside her walked Dr. Preston Shaw.
The former medical examiner who had signed Daniel’s death certificate.
