Chapter 13 - The Evidence in the Broom.
Elena looked down at the broom as if it had suddenly become dangerous.
Detective Pike took one cautious step closer.
"Don't open it here."
Mara's eyes narrowed.
"How do you know what's inside?"
"Because Isabel Reyes told me eight years ago."
Gabriel stared at him.
"You knew my mother?"
"She contacted me after Mara disappeared."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because she said you were being watched."
Gabriel's face hardened.
"Everyone keeps using that sentence to justify lying to me."
Pike looked almost sympathetic.
"Your father had people in local government, corporate security, law firms, and law enforcement."
"My father is dead."
"His network isn't."
Mara stepped closer.
"You told me the task force had been compromised."
"It was."
"By you?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Pike glanced toward the deputies.
"Not here."
Elena almost laughed.
"That's becoming the official slogan of this family."
One deputy looked offended.
The other almost smiled.
Gabriel pointed toward the stable.
"Inside."
They moved into the tack room.
Pike left the deputies outside.
Mara remained near the door.
Elena placed the broom on a wooden table.
The brass cap at the end of the handle looked ordinary.
Mara twisted it counterclockwise.
It did not move.
"It used to open."
Gabriel examined the seam.
"It may be sealed from age."
Bell approached slowly.
"No."
Everyone looked at him.
"Mrs. Reyes had a second lock added."
Mara frowned.
"When?"
"After you left the lake house."
"I never saw her again."
"I did."
Mara stared at him.
"You told me you didn't."
Bell looked ashamed.
"I lied to keep one promise."
Elena rubbed her forehead.
"At this point, we should hand out name tags that say what each person lied about."
Bell almost smiled.
Then he pulled the old key marked M from Elena's ring.
There was a tiny notch near the end.
He pressed it into a nearly invisible slot in the brass cap.
The cap released.
Inside the broom handle was a narrow metal tube.
Bell slid it out.
Mara looked shocked.
"That's not what I put there."
"Your backup was replaced."
Bell unscrewed the tube.
Inside was a tiny memory card and a folded strip of paper.
Gabriel picked up the paper.
It was written in his mother's handwriting.
TO GABRIEL, WHEN HE IS READY TO SEE ME CLEARLY.
His hand trembled once.
Elena noticed.
He unfolded it.
My son,
If you are reading this, the truth has already hurt people I wanted to protect.
Your father created Northstar.
Marcus Hale expanded it.
I discovered both too late.
Mara found records that could expose them, and I tried to help her leave.
I failed to keep her safe after the lake house.
But there is something even Hale does not know.
I copied everything Mara found and added records of my own.
The card in this handle contains the names of every person who received money through Northstar.
Do not release it blindly.
Some names are guilty.
Some were paid without knowing why.
One name will hurt you more than the rest.
Gabriel stopped reading.
Elena looked at him.
"What name?"
He continued.
Your own.
Silence filled the tack room.
Gabriel read the line twice.
"My own?"
Pike looked away.
Mara watched him carefully.
Elena took the memory card.
"We need a computer that never touched the estate network."
Mara had one in the cottage, but that location was compromised.
Pike offered a forensic laptop from his vehicle.
Mara immediately refused.
"No government hardware."
Pike sighed.
"Still trusting as ever."
"Still alive as ever."
Celeste suggested the old grounds office.
It contained a desktop computer installed before the estate's current network existed.
They crossed there under deputy escort.
Gabriel remained silent.
Elena wanted to ask what he was thinking.
She did not.
For the first time since this began, his fear looked as visible as hers had in the hallway.
At the grounds office, Mara disconnected the computer from every cable except power.
She inserted the memory card.
A password prompt appeared.
Gabriel tried his mother's birthday.
Wrong.
He tried his own.
Wrong.
Elena looked at the frozen date in Mara's letter.
"October fourteen."
Mara typed 1014.
Wrong.
Bell looked at the wooden broom.
"Mrs. Reyes always said the house remembered what people forgot."
Elena thought of the grandfather clock.
Eleven fifty-eight.
She typed 1158.
The drive opened.
Hundreds of files filled the screen.
Payment records.
Audio files.
Scanned notes.
Photos.
Mara opened a spreadsheet titled BENEFICIARIES.
The names were arranged alphabetically.
Government officials.
Contractors.
Executives.
Hale appeared dozens of times.
Gabriel's father appeared even more.
Then Mara scrolled to R.
REYES, GABRIEL A.
Payments totaling twelve million dollars.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
"I never received that money."
Elena looked at him.
"Where did it go?"
Mara opened the linked account.
It belonged to a trust created in Gabriel's name when he was twenty-one.
The authorized trustee was Marcus Hale.
Pike leaned closer.
"This is how Hale controlled you."
"By putting stolen money in my name?"
"By making sure that if you ever exposed Northstar, you looked like one of its biggest beneficiaries."
Gabriel went pale.
"My father knew?"
Mara opened another file.
An audio recording appeared, dated October 14.
Gabriel pressed play.
His father's voice filled the room.
"If Gabriel ever turns against us, the trust makes him part of us."
Then Marcus Hale answered.
"And if the girl talks?"
There was a pause.
Gabriel's father spoke again.
"Make sure Mara Torres never gets the chance."
Elena's stomach turned.
Mara stared at the speaker.
Then a third voice entered the recording.
A woman's voice.
Celeste's voice.
"I can take care of Torres."
Everyone turned toward Celeste.
She went white.
"That's not me."
The recording continued.
May you like
The woman laughed softly.
"You won't have to worry about her again."
