Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Prepared the Sale
Luxury Peak Realty occupied the top floor of a glass office building overlooking the Blackridge River.
The broker handling the cabin sale was Adrian Lang, a careful man whose reputation depended on avoiding surprises.
The sale had been brought to him by a junior transaction coordinator named Claire Bennett.
Claire had grown up in Blackridge.
She was thirty-one, soft-spoken and almost invisible in meetings. She rarely contradicted senior employees, never raised her voice and took meticulous notes in a small gray notebook.
She was also the person who had assembled Mason’s closing packet.
On the morning after Mason’s phone call, Claire arrived at work before sunrise.
She entered the records room using her employee badge, located the Hayes transaction box and removed the file containing the hidden deed.
She held the document beneath the fluorescent light.
Her hands trembled.
She had seen it two weeks earlier while sorting the papers Mason delivered from the cabin.
It had been folded inside a yellow envelope marked with a single handwritten sentence.
For Nora, when they try to take everything.
Claire had recognized Caleb Hayes’s handwriting.
Everyone in Blackridge had seen it on community petitions, letters to the newspaper and notices posted at town hall.
Claire had also recognized Nora’s name.
She could have reported the document immediately.
Instead, she had hidden it among the closing papers, hoping Adrian Lang would find it at the final signing.
She had been too afraid to do more.
Now fear had become certainty.
Someone knew.
The records-room door opened behind her.
Claire spun around.
Emily Reed stood there wearing a white designer dress and oversized sunglasses.
Mason’s daughter was twenty-eight and treated every room as though she had purchased admission to it.
“You’re early,” Emily said.
Claire placed the file on the table.
“So are you.”
Emily closed the door.
“My father said there was a paperwork issue.”
“I’m reviewing the transaction.”
Emily walked closer.
“Did you find something?”
Claire forced herself to remain still.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because my father has spent the entire night calling people and screaming.”
“I can’t discuss client information.”
Emily smiled.
It was not a friendly smile.
“Claire, you process documents for a living. Don’t start pretending you’re important.”
Claire reached for the file.
Emily placed one hand on it.
“The cabin sale is happening today.”
“That depends on whether the seller has legal title.”
“My father owns it.”
“Then he has nothing to worry about.”
Emily leaned close enough for Claire to smell her perfume.
“My father says you were the last person inside that cabin before the papers were delivered.”
“I conducted an inventory.”
“Did you take anything?”
“No.”
“Did you leave anything?”
Claire met her eyes.
“No.”
Emily watched her for several seconds.
Then she released the file.
“My flight leaves tomorrow,” she said. “I will not miss Hawaii because some dead man forgot how to organize his papers.”
When Emily left, Claire waited until the hallway fell silent.
Then she opened her notebook and wrote a single sentence.
Emily knows the deed was planted.
May you like
Below it, she wrote another.
But she does not know who helped me.
