Chapter 8 - Laura Reed's Warning.
Emma and Sloane had no safe path back to the loading door.
Grant and Rusk stood between them and the only exit they knew.
Sloane leaned close to Emma's ear.
"There is a side door on the west wall."
Emma mouthed, "How do you know?"
Sloane pointed toward a faded evacuation map mounted on a support column.
The west door was three aisles away.
Grant called into the warehouse.
"You can come out."
Neither woman moved.
"I am not interested in making this dramatic."
Sloane rolled her eyes.
Emma almost laughed despite herself.
Grant continued.
"If you are here for the suitcase, take it."
Rusk whispered something Emma could not hear.
Grant replied loudly.
"No, Nolan, I am not chasing anyone through a warehouse."
Emma realized he wanted them to believe the exit was safe.
That made it less safe.
She looked at the suitcase.
It would slow them down.
She removed her mother's framed photograph, the probate documents still scattered inside, and the luggage tracker.
Then she left the suitcase behind.
Sloane nodded toward the next aisle.
They moved when Grant spoke again.
One aisle.
Then two.
Emma's boot scraped a loose bolt across the concrete.
The metallic sound echoed.
Rusk shouted.
"There!"
Emma and Sloane ran.
They reached the west wall seconds before Rusk rounded the aisle behind them.
Sloane hit the emergency bar.
The metal door opened with a shrill alarm.
Sunlight flooded the doorway.
They sprinted across a gravel lot and through a gap in the fence.
Rusk stopped at the property line.
Perhaps he remembered he was still wearing a badge.
Perhaps he remembered the warehouse had cameras.
Grant never appeared outside.
Sloane and Emma reached the Jeep breathless and laughing from pure nervous relief.
"I cannot believe we just did that," Emma said.
"Neither can I."
Sloane started the engine.
"Mason is going to lose his mind."
Emma buckled her seat belt.
"Then do not tell him."
Sloane gave her a sideways look.
"I like you more every hour."
They drove straight to Clara Voss's office because Emma no longer trusted the sheriff's department with the recording.
Clara listened to the audio twice.
Her professional calm disappeared when Grant mentioned Laura Reed.
"He has the blue envelope?"
Emma stared at her.
"You know about it."
Clara removed her glasses.
"I know Laura wrote something before she left Bellamy."
"What did she write?"
"She never showed me."
"Why did Grant say she should have destroyed it?"
Clara looked toward the closed office door.
"Because your mother witnessed a meeting that could invalidate part of the Hale family's land holdings."
Emma felt anger climb again.
"Every person in my life seems to know a different piece of my mother's history except me."
"Laura wanted it that way."
"She is dead, Clara."
Emma's voice shook.
"So stop using her wishes as an excuse to keep me ignorant."
Clara flinched.
Then she opened a locked drawer and removed an old file.
"Your mother was twenty-three when she worked for Evelyn Reed as an assistant."
Emma stared.
"She worked at Briarstone?"
"For two summers."
"She told me she had never lived here."
"Technically, she lived in town."
Emma gave her a look.
Clara sighed.
"Yes, she lied too."
Sloane muttered, "Apparently it was the local hobby."
Clara ignored her.
"Laura discovered that Harrison Hale was pressuring Evelyn to grant access across the western ridge."
"For what?"
"A private road connecting several parcels his company had purchased."
"And Evelyn refused."
"Repeatedly."
Clara opened the file to a faded photocopy of a map.
"Then a right-of-way document appeared in the county records with Evelyn's signature."
"Forged."
"That was Thomas Cole's claim."
Sloane leaned forward at the mention of her father.
"Dad knew?"
"He saw Harrison's survey crew arrive before Evelyn had signed anything."
"Why did no one challenge it?"
Clara's mouth tightened.
"Because Thomas died before the hearing."
Sloane went very still.
Emma remembered Mason calling his father's death a construction accident.
"When?"
"Three days before he was supposed to testify."
The room became silent.
Sloane's face had lost all color.
"You never told us that."
"Your mother knew."
"My mother told us Dad fell from scaffolding because he was careless."
Clara looked pained.
"I am sorry."
Emma understood why Mason had spent years digging into the Hale family.
She also understood why obsession might have replaced honesty without him noticing.
"What happened to the right-of-way case?"
"It disappeared."
Clara closed the file.
"Evelyn withdrew the challenge and cut herself off from almost everyone."
Emma frowned.
"Why would she do that?"
"I never knew."
"You were her attorney."
"Junior counsel."
Emma noticed Clara corrected the title but not the implication.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Clara's eyes shifted toward Sloane.
"There are things I am not authorized to disclose until the occupancy condition is complete."
Emma stood.
"Then I am done asking permission."
She picked up her mother's framed photograph.
A corner of the cardboard backing had peeled loose after being thrown around in the suitcase.
Emma pressed it flat.
Something blue showed beneath it.
She stopped.
"Wait."
Sloane leaned closer.
Emma removed the metal tabs holding the frame together.
Behind Laura Reed's photograph was a small blue envelope sealed with dark red wax.
Emma stared at it.
"They found a decoy."
Clara stood so quickly her chair rolled backward.
"Laura hid the real letter in the frame."
Emma's hands trembled as she broke the wax.
The letter inside was written in her mother's familiar slanted handwriting.
Emma read the first line silently.
My dearest Emma, if Briarstone ever comes to you, then the thing I feared has finally happened.
Her throat tightened.
She continued aloud.
"Do not sell the house until you know why your grandmother kept it."
Sloane moved beside her.
Emma read the next line.
"Thomas Cole was telling the truth."
Sloane inhaled sharply.
Emma kept going.
"He hid the original Briarstone deed where Harrison Hale could never find it."
Clara whispered, "Where?"
Emma reached the last paragraph.
Her mother's handwriting became darker, as if she had pressed the pen harder.
"If Clara Voss is still involved, do not let her see it first."
No one moved.
May you like
Emma slowly lowered the letter.
Clara's face went white.
