Chapter 2 - THE THING THEY DIDN’T FIND
I stared at Harrison Reed’s message until the words blurred.
They just managed to pry open the wooden box in his study. But whatever Marcus was hiding... it’s already gone.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
I looked toward the mansion through the rain-streaked windshield.
Two silhouettes moved behind the illuminated windows of Marcus’s study.
Then a third.
One of them was Chad.
Even from fifty yards away, I recognized the arrogant way my brother-in-law carried himself—shoulders back, glass in one hand, as if every room automatically belonged to him.
Another man stood beside Marcus’s desk.
Tall.
Gray coat.
Black gloves.
I had never seen him before.
The third man closed the curtains.
That was enough.
I started the engine.
My headlights stayed off as I eased backward through the trees.
I had barely reached the road when two white beams suddenly appeared behind me.
The black sedan.
My stomach dropped.
It pulled away from the estate.
Fast.
I hit the accelerator.
My old Honda was fifteen years old and made a grinding sound whenever I pushed it past sixty, but that night I drove it like my life depended on it.
Maybe it did.
The sedan stayed behind me through two turns.
Then three.
I called Harrison Reed.
He answered immediately.
“Harper?”
“They’re following me.”
There was no hesitation.
“Do not go home.”
“Who are they?”
“Drive toward downtown.”
“Harrison—”
“Harper, listen to me. Marcus paid me a very large retainer to prepare for exactly this possibility. Take Fifth Avenue south. Stay somewhere public. I’m sending you an address.”
The sedan accelerated.
I could see its grille clearly in my rearview mirror now.
My hands shook against the steering wheel.
“Harrison, what did Marcus know?”
Silence.
“Harrison?”
“I’ll explain when you’re safe.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“It has to be.”
The call ended.
A text appeared seconds later.
A twenty-four-hour diner near First Hill.
I drove toward it.
The sedan followed for another mile.
Then, as traffic thickened around downtown, it disappeared.
I didn’t feel relieved.
I felt hunted.
When I finally pulled into the diner parking lot, Harrison Reed was already there.
He was not what I expected.
Marcus had mentioned his attorney many times, but I had imagined someone older, softer, maybe a little boring.
Harrison looked like a man who had forgotten how to sleep.
Late forties.
Dark overcoat.
Silver beginning at his temples.
He was seated in the farthest booth with his back to the wall.
When I approached, he stood.
“Mrs. Vance.”
“Harper.”
He nodded.
“Harper.”
I slid into the booth.
“Start talking.”
He studied my face.
“You look like Marcus when you’re angry.”
That nearly broke me.
I looked away.
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell me why my husband thought I would be in danger.”
Harrison placed both hands on the table.
“For approximately eighteen months, Marcus had been conducting a private audit of Vance Meridian Holdings.”
I blinked.
Marcus’s company.
The empire Evelyn and Chad were dividing before he was buried.
“What kind of audit?”
“The kind he didn’t trust his own executives to know about.”
I stared at him.
Vance Meridian was enormous.
Commercial property.
Ports.
Warehousing.
Private aviation.
Technology infrastructure.
Construction.
Almost nine thousand employees across seven states.
Marcus had inherited part of it from his father, but he had transformed it into something far bigger.
Chad had spent most of his adulthood spending money generated by it.
Evelyn treated it like a royal bloodline.
“What did he find?”
Harrison glanced toward the window.
“I don’t know everything.”
“You’re his lawyer.”
“And that distinction mattered to Marcus. He deliberately compartmentalized information.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed someone inside the company was monitoring him.”
My heartbeat slowed.
The kind of unnatural slowing that came right before panic.
“Harrison, Marcus died because a truck crossed the center line.”
“That is what the preliminary report says.”
I stared at him.
“Preliminary?”
He didn’t answer.
My throat tightened.
“You think the crash wasn’t an accident.”
“I think Marcus believed there was a possibility someone might try to kill him.”
The diner suddenly felt too warm.
I stood so quickly my knee struck the table.
Coffee sloshed from Harrison’s cup.
“No.”
“Harper—”
“No. You don’t get to tell me that casually.”
“I’m not.”
“He got into that car after kissing me goodbye. He told me he’d be home before dinner.”
“I know.”
“He called me twenty minutes before he died.”
Harrison’s expression changed.
“What did he say?”
My chest tightened.
“He asked if I still had the silver key.”
Harrison went completely still.
I noticed.
“You know about it.”
“Show me.”
I reached into my jacket.
Nothing.
My breath caught.
I checked the other pocket.
Then my jeans.
Then every pocket again.
“It was here.”
Harrison leaned forward.
“Where did you last have it?”
“At the estate. Earlier tonight.”
“Did anyone touch your coat?”
“I—”
Then I remembered.
Evelyn had ordered one of the housekeepers to bring out two garbage bags containing my clothes.
My coat had been draped over one of them.
For several minutes, it had been sitting unattended near the front door.
My face went cold.
“I might have lost it.”
Harrison exhaled.
“Then we have a serious problem.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I know what Marcus told me.”
“Which was?”
“That if anything happened to him, you would have the key. And if you had the key, I was to make sure nobody convinced you to surrender anything until you understood what he had done.”
“What he had done?”
Harrison reached into his briefcase.
He removed an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Marcus’s handwriting.
I stopped breathing.
HARPER.
I touched the letters.
For one impossible second I imagined his hand holding the pen.
His fingers.
His wedding ring.
The tiny scar near his thumb from when he’d cut himself repairing our kitchen cabinet because he refused to admit he didn’t know how.
“When did he give you this?”
“Six weeks ago.”
My voice cracked.
“Why didn’t you give it to me immediately?”
“Because the envelope came with instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“I could deliver it only after someone searched the wooden box.”
I stared at him.
Marcus had known.
Not guessed.
Known.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
Seven words.
You always forget the pocket inside the pocket.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Harrison frowned.
“Does that mean something?”
My heart started hammering.
I looked down at my jacket.
Not the jacket.
The garbage bags.
Marcus used to tease me about my old charcoal raincoat.
It had a hidden security pocket sewn behind the normal inside pocket.
I had bought it before a backpacking trip years ago.
Every time we traveled, I forgot it existed.
I stood.
“My apartment.”
“You cannot go there.”
“My clothes are there.”
“Harper—”
“I know what Marcus meant.”
Twenty minutes later, Harrison and I entered my apartment building through the underground garage.
He had insisted on following me.
The hallway outside my unit looked normal.
The door was still locked.
Inside, nothing appeared disturbed.
My two garbage bags sat exactly where I had left them.
I ripped open the first.
Sweaters.
Shoes.
Jeans.
Nothing.
I tore into the second.
At the bottom was my old charcoal raincoat.
My hands shook.
I found the inside pocket.
Then slid my fingers behind the lining.
The hidden zipper was almost invisible.
I opened it.
Something hard touched my fingertips.
Not the silver key.
A rectangular object wrapped in black electrical tape.
I pulled it out.
It was smaller than my thumb.
A hardened encrypted data drive.
Harrison whispered one word.
“Jesus.”
Taped around it was another piece of paper.
Marcus’s handwriting again.
This is what they will kill for.
My knees weakened.
Harrison locked the apartment door.
“Do not connect that to anything.”
“Why?”
“Because if Marcus went to this much trouble, assume the drive has protections.”
I sank onto the couch.
“What is on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you think the people at the estate were looking for this.”
“Yes.”
“And Marcus knew they would search the box.”
“Yes.”
A horrible understanding began forming.
“The wooden box was bait.”
Harrison nodded.
I looked at the encrypted drive resting in my palm.
Marcus had hidden it in something he knew his family would throw away with me.
My coat.
My clothes.
Me.
They had been so certain I was worthless that they had delivered the one thing they were searching for directly into my hands.
A laugh escaped me.
It didn’t sound sane.
Harrison watched me carefully.
“What?”
“Marcus knew them.”
I wiped my face.
“He knew Evelyn would throw me out.”
“Apparently.”
“He knew Chad would take the cars. He knew Amber would go after the properties. He knew they would tear apart the expensive things first.”
I looked at the cheap old raincoat.
“And he knew none of them would touch something they thought belonged to me.”
Harrison sat opposite me.
“There’s something else.”
My laugh disappeared.
“What?”
“The will you knew about is not Marcus’s final estate plan.”
I stared at him.
“The will Evelyn’s lawyer has?”
“Superseded.”
“By what?”
Harrison’s gaze settled on the drive.
“That depends on whether Marcus’s final instructions can be authenticated.”
“Authenticated by what?”
“I believe the answer is on there.”
I wrapped my fingers around the device.
Marcus’s warning came back.
Don’t fight them for the crumbs.
Only take what is already yours.
“What happens if they realize I have this?”
Harrison did not soften his answer.
“They will come for you.”
Right then, someone knocked on my apartment door.
Three slow knocks.
Harrison and I froze.
Then came a man’s voice.
“Mrs. Vance?”
Another knock.
“Seattle Police. We need to speak with you regarding your husband’s death.”
Harrison’s eyes went immediately to mine.
He didn’t move toward the door.
Instead, he silently reached for his phone.
I lowered my voice.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward me.
He had texted someone.
Three words.
Are officers there?
The response arrived almost immediately.
No units dispatched.
The knocking came again.
Harder.
“Mrs. Vance?”
I closed my fist around Marcus’s encrypted drive.
And for the first time since my husband died, grief gave way to something colder.
Marcus hadn’t left me an inheritance.
May you like
He had left me a war.
And someone was already standing outside my door.
