Chapter 15 - The Empty Office
Public records listed Marrowgate Property Services at an office building near the Westbridge courthouse.
Nora and Leah arrived with two detectives the following morning.
The office was empty.
Fresh marks on the carpet showed where desks had recently stood. Shredded paper filled three bins, but every computer, cabinet, and personal item had been removed.
Building management claimed the tenant had ended its lease at midnight.
Security footage showed four people clearing the office between two and four in the morning. Three wore caps that concealed their faces.
The fourth did not.
The woman appeared to be in her late fifties, with silver-blonde hair and a scar near her left eyebrow.
Nora enlarged the image.
Celeste had received that scar after falling from a tree when she was twelve. Ada used to tell the story during family dinners.
“She survived,” Nora said.
Detective Harris cautioned that the resemblance did not prove identity. Nora barely heard him.
A final camera showed the woman leaving with a red document case. She stopped outside the elevator and looked directly at the lens.
Then she lifted a photograph.
It showed Nora as a child standing between Ada and Benjamin.
Written across the photograph were the words:
ONE OF THEM LIED TO YOU.
The detectives collected the shredded paper. Leah found part of a hotel invoice bearing Elias Voss’s initials and a reservation number.
The hotel refused to release information without a warrant.
Back at Hale House, Nora searched the attic for Celeste’s belongings. She found old newspaper articles about the boating accident and a memorial program printed before the official search had ended.
The program had been ordered by Benjamin Hale.
Nora called her father for the first time in four years.
The number was disconnected.
Leah searched recent property records under Benjamin’s name.
He had purchased a small cabin outside Westbridge eight months earlier.
They drove there before sunset.
The front door stood open.
Inside, the furniture had been covered with sheets, and a cup of coffee was still warm on the table.
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On the wall, someone had written one sentence in black paint:
BENJAMIN HALE WAS NEVER YOUR FATHER.
