“Who requested it?”
“Margaret.”
Emma stood. “The office.”
“What office?” I asked.
“The one near the library,” she said quickly. “Your father’s old desk is there. That’s where she keeps the locked cabinet. I saw her and Jennifer going through papers last week.”
Samuel’s expression sharpened. “What kind of papers?”
“I don’t know. But Jennifer said something about making sure Daniel never saw the original.”
“The original what?” I asked.
Emma shook her head. “I couldn’t hear.”
I turned to Samuel. “
We’re going back.”
Emma stepped closer. “Carefully.”
“I know.”
“No,” she said, placing a hand on my arm. “Together. Not as a man storming his house. As someone they underestimate.”
I looked at her then—not as the wounded woman from the kitchen, not as someone I had to rescue, but as the person who had survived inside the lie long enough to map its walls.
“You have a plan,” I said.
A faint smile touched her face.
“I have two years of practice.”
By noon, we returned to the mansion with Samuel and two private auditors he trusted. I did not warn my family. The same security guard from the night before opened the gate, and when he saw Emma sitting beside me in the car, he looked down with visible shame.
Inside, the house was quiet.
Too quiet.
The dining room had been cleaned. The flowers were gone. No
trace remained of the celebration except a faint sweetness in the air from spilled wine and polished wood.
My mother appeared near the staircase wearing a cream blouse and pearls, composed as ever.
“Daniel,” she said. “You should have called.”
“I’m done calling ahead.”
Her gaze moved to Samuel. “Mr. Reed. I wasn’t aware you were expected.”
“That seems to be a common theme,” he said.
Jennifer came out of the library, her phone in her hand. When she saw Emma, her expression tightened.
Michael followed a moment later, restless and unshaven, as if he hadn’t slept.
I looked at each of them.
“We’re reviewing the household records,” I said.
My mother’s chin lifted. “Of course. We have nothing to hide.”
Emma spoke then.
“Good. Then you won’t mind opening the locked cabinet.”
Margaret’s eyes flashed toward her.
Just a flicker.
But everyone saw it.
“What cabinet?” Michael asked too
quickly.
Emma walked past him toward the library.
