Chapter 5 - THE BODY BEHIND THE WALL
Richard did not speak for several seconds.
Elena stared at the hospital wall.
Lily had been taken into the family lounge by a nurse before Victoria’s final sentence.
Only Richard, Elena, and Detective Brooks remained on the secure call.
“What body?”
Richard finally asked.
Elena rubbed both hands over her face.
“I didn’t know who she was.”
“She?”
Brooks leaned closer.
“You found a woman?”
Elena nodded.
“Two years ago.”
“Where?”
“In the tunnel.”
Victoria laughed quietly from the interview room.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Brooks turned toward the camera.
“Victoria, be quiet.”
Victoria leaned back.
Elena continued.
“I was renovating Lily’s playroom.”
Richard remembered.
“You wanted built-in shelves.”
“Yes.”
“The contractor found the hatch?”
“No.”
“I did.”
Elena swallowed.
“There was cold air coming through the floor.”
“So you opened it.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I went downstairs.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Richard closed his eyes briefly.
Elena continued.
“I found the chamber.”
“Was the cot there?”
“No.”
“The chain?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“A door.”
“The tunnel.”
“Yes.”
She breathed slowly.
“I followed it.”
Richard already knew he would hate whatever came next.
“How far?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe fifty feet.”
“There was another room.”
Brooks asked, “What kind?”
“Storage.”
“Old wine racks.”
“Wood crates.”
“And the body?”
Elena’s voice weakened.
“Behind a false wall.”
Richard felt his stomach turn.
“You opened it?”
“It was already loose.”
“I pulled one board.”
She stared at nothing.
“I saw a shoe first.”
Brooks’s voice remained controlled.
“What color?”
“Red.”
“Then?”
“A leg.”
“And you knew?”
“I knew.”
Richard moved closer.
“Why didn’t you call the police?”
Elena looked at him.
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“My phone had no signal underground.”
“So you came upstairs.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Victoria was standing in the study.”
Richard went still.
Elena continued.
“She asked where I’d been.”
“I told her I found something.”
“What did she do?”
“She smiled.”
A chill moved through him.
“Then?”
“She said we should call Daniel.”
Richard’s hands clenched.
“I said no.”
“I wanted the police.”
“She told me Daniel knew the history of the house.”
“I went to get my phone.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“And then Mercer came through the door.”
Richard knew the rest before she said it.
“He injected you.”
“Yes.”
“When did you wake up?”
“In the cellar.”
Victoria leaned toward the camera.
“You’re skipping something.”
Brooks snapped, “Enough.”
“No.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“She’s still protecting him.”
Richard looked at Elena.
“Protecting who?”
Elena shook her head.
“No one.”
Victoria smiled.
“Ask her whose cuff link was beside the body.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Richard stared.
“Elena.”
She whispered, “Your father’s.”
Silence.
Richard’s father, Jonathan Hale, had died eight years earlier.
He had built Hale Development into one of the largest privately held construction firms in the state.
He had also owned the estate before Richard purchased it from the family trust.
“You found my father’s cuff link?”
“Yes.”
“What did it look like?”
“Silver.”
Richard already knew.
“With a black H?”
Elena nodded.
Richard sat down.
His father had worn those cuff links almost every day.
Brooks spoke.
“That does not prove the body was connected to your father.”
Richard barely heard her.
Victoria did.
“Oh, it was connected.”
Brooks looked toward the screen.
“You want a deal?”
“I want protection.”
“From Daniel?”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“From whoever gets to me first.”
“Give me a name.”
Victoria looked directly into the camera.
“Nora Beck.”
Richard froze.
He knew the name.
Nora had been Hale Development’s senior accountant fifteen years earlier.
She disappeared after being accused of stealing nearly two million dollars.
His father told the family she fled overseas.
Police never found her.
Richard stood.
“You’re saying Nora Beck is buried beneath my house?”
Victoria’s smile vanished.
“I’m saying you should dig before Daniel gets there.”
Brooks was already moving.
She called the crime-scene team.
Richard turned back to Elena.
“You knew there was a body beneath our home.”
“For less than ten minutes before they took me.”
“Did Victoria ever talk about it while you were captive?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That Nora had made the same mistake I did.”
“What mistake?”
“Looking at accounts that didn’t belong to her.”
Richard’s phone rang.
His company’s chief security officer.
He answered.
“Mr. Hale, we have an issue.”
“What?”
“Someone accessed the archive server last night.”
“From where?”
“Your brother’s credentials.”
Richard looked at Brooks.
“What files?”
“Historic accounting.”
“What years?”
“2008 through 2012.”
The period Nora Beck worked for the company.
“Were anything deleted?”
A pause.
“Everything.”
Richard felt the pieces moving faster than he could follow.
“Backups?”
“Off-site.”
“Check them.”
“We are.”
The security officer hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Someone entered headquarters twenty minutes ago.”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Richard looked at Brooks.
She was already calling officers.
“Where is he now?”
“He went to your father’s old office.”
“Is security with him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He used executive override.”
Richard’s voice hardened.
“Lock the building.”
“Mr. Hale—”
“Do it.”
The line crackled.
Then the security officer said, “He’s leaving.”
“Stop him.”
“I’m trying.”
Richard heard shouting.
A crash.
Then the call ended.
Brooks headed for the door.
“I’m sending units.”
Richard grabbed his coat.
“You’re staying.”
“That’s my company.”
“And your brother may be involved in kidnapping and murder.”
“I’m going.”
Elena grabbed his arm.
“Richard.”
He looked at her.
“Don’t chase Daniel.”
“I’m not letting him disappear.”
“That’s exactly what he wants.”
Richard stopped.
Elena’s eyes held his.
“He never came into the cellar angry.”
“What?”
“When I heard him.”
“He was always calm.”
Richard waited.
“He talked to Victoria like everything was a negotiation.”
She swallowed.
“If Daniel knows we found the body, he won’t panic.”
“What will he do?”
Elena whispered, “He’ll remove the one thing that can prove who killed Nora.”
Richard stared at her.
“What thing?”
“I heard Victoria mention it.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“She called it the red ledger.”
Richard suddenly remembered something from childhood.
His father kept a red leather accounting book in a locked drawer.
Jonathan Hale never allowed anyone to touch it.
After his death, the book disappeared.
Richard had assumed it was destroyed.
He looked at Elena.
“I’ve seen it.”
“Where?”
“Years ago.”
Richard stood.
“My father kept it in this house.”
Brooks stopped at the doorway.
“Where?”
Richard thought.
Then he remembered the one room his father had forbidden him and Daniel from entering as children.
A narrow library behind the master staircase.
After Jonathan died, the room had been converted.
Richard’s eyes widened.
“Lily’s nursery.”
Elena went pale.
Richard ran.
He reached the Hale estate forty minutes later with police behind him.
Crime-scene technicians were already working below the study.
Richard went upstairs.
Lily’s old nursery had been turned into a reading room.
He moved the bookshelf.
Nothing.
He checked behind the molding.
Nothing.
Then he remembered his father tapping the wall before opening the old safe.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
Richard pressed the wood.
A panel clicked.
Inside sat a small steel compartment.
Detective Brooks pulled on gloves.
She opened it.
The compartment was empty.
Except for one torn piece of red leather.
Someone had already taken the ledger.
Brooks lifted the scrap.
Richard saw something underneath it.
A photograph.
He picked it up.
The image had been taken two years earlier.
It showed Elena unconscious on the cellar floor.
Victoria stood beside her.
Mercer held a syringe.
And in the background, half hidden by darkness, stood a third person.
Richard stared.
The man’s face was turned away.
May you like
But his left hand was visible.
On one finger was the heavy gold ring Richard had given Daniel on his thirtieth birthday.
