Chapter 10 - Blackridge
Blackridge House had been empty for eleven years.
Officially.
Alexander refused to let Emily go alone.
Porter refused too.
At 11:47 p.m., three unmarked vehicles stopped half a mile from the property.
Blackridge stood beyond dead trees on a ridge overlooking an old reservoir.
The house was enormous.
Dark stone.
Broken windows.
A collapsed greenhouse.
“It belonged to your father?” Emily whispered.
Alexander nodded.
“He stopped using it after the incident.”
“The man who died.”
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
Alexander looked toward the house.
“We never knew.”
Emily stared at him.
“You saw the body?”
“I was twenty-four.”
His voice was distant.
“My father called me here after midnight. There was blood in the study. A man was dead.”
“What did your father say?”
“That Adrian Cross had attacked him.”
“And then?”
“He told me Cross was dead.”
“You believed him.”
“For years.”
Porter approached.
“Ready?”
They entered.
Dust covered everything.
Portraits remained on walls.
Furniture remained beneath white sheets.
Emily felt as though the house had been abandoned mid-breath.
They reached the study.
Alexander stopped.
“This is where it happened.”
The carpet had been removed.
But a darker stain remained beneath the floor varnish.
Emily looked around.
A fireplace.
Bookshelves.
A heavy desk.
One painting hung crooked.
She moved toward it.
Alexander caught her arm.
“Emily.”
“What?”
“Listen.”
A faint sound.
Mechanical.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Porter drew her weapon.
Officers spread through the room.
Emily looked toward the desk.
The sound came from inside.
Alexander opened a drawer.
An old cassette recorder.
Exactly like the one from Box 417.
It was running.
Porter pressed stop.
Then rewind.
Play.
Static.
A man’s voice.
Richard Hale.
Alexander’s father.
“If you are hearing this, then Blackridge has been opened again.”
Alexander went rigid.
The recording continued.
“Adrian, if you found this first, you already know what I did.”
Static crackled.
“I should have stopped you when Charles asked me.”
Emily’s heart pounded.
“But I was afraid of what you had on me.”
Alexander stared at the machine.
His father continued.
“The man who died here was Samuel Trent. He worked for you. I moved the body. I lied to Alexander.”
Alexander closed his eyes.
Emily touched his hand.
The recording continued.
“Charles discovered the ledger. Victoria helped Adrian access Carter accounts because Adrian promised to protect Lucas.”
Emily frowned.
Protect Lucas from what?
Then the tape distorted.
A second voice appeared.
Fainter.
Charles Carter.
Emily recognized it instantly.
“If anything happens to me, Emily gets the ledger.”
Her knees nearly buckled.
Alexander caught her.
Her father’s voice continued.
“Not Lucas. Not Victoria. Emily.”
Static.
“Because she is the only one Adrian never bothered to watch.”
Emily whispered:
“Watch?”
The tape stopped.
Then somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Porter looked up.
“Police!”
Silence.
Another sound.
A door closing.
Officers ran.
Emily followed before Alexander could stop her.
They reached the second floor.
A hallway.
One door slowly swinging.
Inside was a bedroom.
Empty.
Window open.
Then Emily saw the wall.
Dozens of photographs.
Her.
Age eight.
Age twelve.
College graduation.
Her first apartment.
Her nonprofit office.
Emily and Alexander leaving a restaurant.
Their courthouse wedding.
Emily stopped breathing.
Someone had photographed everything.
Every stage of her life.
Alexander tore one picture from the wall.
Their wedding day.
Taken from across the courthouse.
“We were followed.”
Emily turned.
On a small table was another envelope.
Her name.
Inside:
You were never invisible, Emily.
You were being protected.
She read it twice.
May you like
Then another line beneath it.
Your father did not die from cancer.
