Chapter 3 - The Secret Mark Buried
Rachel stood and walked quietly into the laundry room.
There was a narrow window above the washer. Through it, she could see the side yard and part of the driveway.
The white van was now parked behind their fence.
Two rear doors stood open.
Inside were plastic bins, tools, and another black metal case.
Rachel took several photographs.
She then opened the family security app on her phone. The front camera was offline. The kitchen camera was offline. The hallway camera was offline.
All three had been disconnected at exactly 7:42 p.m.
Only one device remained active: the small doorbell camera at the back gate, which Mark had probably forgotten existed.
Rachel opened the recording history.
At 7:51, two men entered carrying pry bars and padded bags.
At 8:03, Mark followed them outside and looked directly toward the street before shutting the gate.
Rachel replayed the clip.
One man wore a jacket with the logo of Harrow Estate Recovery.
The name pulled at a memory.
Three months earlier, Rachel’s mother had died after a long illness. While clearing her house, Rachel had found a sealed letter from her grandfather, a retired bank manager. It mentioned “records that should never enter the wrong hands” and warned that Mark had asked questions about an old property outside Baltimore.
Rachel had assumed grief had made the letter sound more mysterious than it was.
Now she remembered something else.
Soon after the funeral, Mark had insisted on replacing the floor in Emily’s bedroom.
He said the boards were warped.
Rachel had been traveling that week.
She opened her messages and searched Mark’s name beside the word buyer.
Nothing.
Then she searched her email.
An unfamiliar login alert appeared from six weeks earlier. Someone had accessed her cloud storage from Mark’s laptop.
Rachel’s mouth went dry.
May you like
The hidden object under Emily’s floor had come from her family.
And Mark had known about it before she did.
