Sheriff Mercer’s order went out before I finished telling her where the book had been.
Dad’s house was already under police control, but nobody had known the old copy of The Secret Garden mattered. Deputies moved upstairs while Mercer stayed on the radio, asking for my bedroom to be sealed and photographed before anything else was touched.
Dad stood beside me, rigid.
“I should have remembered that book.”
“How could you?”
“Your mother kept telling me never to throw it away.”
I looked at him.
“You knew that?”
“She said it had sentimental value.”
“That sounds like Mom.”
“She said it three times.”
That was less like Mom.
The first deputy entered my old room wearing gloves.
His body camera fed live video to Mercer’s screen.
Nothing had changed much since I left home.
The pale green walls were newer, but the furniture was the same. My narrow bookcase still stood beside the window. Two shelves held paperbacks, school yearbooks, and novels I had never bothered taking with me.
The Secret Garden belonged on the third shelf.
The space was empty.
My stomach tightened.
Mercer asked the deputy to check behind the books.
Nothing.
Under the bed.
Nothing.
Closet.
Nothing.
Dad said, “Grant took it.”
“Maybe.”
“He knew.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
The deputy found the first sign near the bookcase.
A thin scratch along the floor.
Something heavy had been dragged.
He moved the bookcase away from the wall.
Behind it was a small square hole cut through the drywall.
Empty.
Dad leaned closer.
“That wasn’t there.”
I knew that too.
Someone had known enough to search behind the shelf.
Then the deputy said, “There’s writing.”
The camera moved.
On the wall, inside the hidden cavity, someone had written in black marker.
DAD — YOU SHOULD HAVE LET HER STAY BURIED.
Dad did not speak.
The room around us disappeared for a moment.
The message was not for me.
Not for Mercer.
Not even for whoever eventually searched the house.
It was for Dad.
Mercer asked whether Grant used that phrasing.
Dad stared at the screen.
“He used to say things like that when he was angry.”
“What things?”
“Short sentences. Like warnings.”
“That isn’t enough to attribute it.”
“No.”
He looked tired.
“But I hear him.”
A deputy found fresh fingerprints near the cavity.
The lab comparison came back quickly.
Grant.
Mercer said nothing when she received the result.
Dad did.
“He has the book.”
Maybe.
But if Grant had it, he had not taken it casually.
The hidden cavity behind the bookcase suggested someone had known Mom concealed things in walls, false bottoms, and ordinary household objects.
Someone had learned her habits.
I asked Dad whether Mom ever hid anything behind my bookcase.
He frowned.
“No.”
“Then why was there a cavity?”
He thought about it.
“She renovated that room after you moved.”
“When?”
“About six months before she died.”
The same period when she hired Turner.
Of course.
Mom had converted my childhood room into another evidence cache.
And Grant had known enough to open it.
Mercer’s phone rang.
The caller was the evidence technician examining the music box.
They had found another mark on the strip of paper.
Not visible at first.
Pressure impressions from something written on a sheet above it.
The technician enhanced them.
A name appeared.
ALDER & WREN.
Dad recognized it.
“It’s a law firm.”
Mercer searched.
Alder & Wren operated in the next county.
Small office.
Estate planning, commercial law, trusts.
One deceased partner.
One active attorney.
Samuel Wren.
Dad whispered, “Eleanor used him.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never saw the name?”
“No.”
The office had no publicly accessible records connecting Mom.
Mercer called.
Samuel Wren was alive.
Seventy-one.
Semi-retired.
When Mercer said Eleanor Cole’s name, he immediately asked whether Frank was safe.
Dad looked toward the speaker.
“I’m here.”
Wren became quiet.
“Then she was right.”
Dad’s expression hardened.
“About what?”
“That eventually someone would come looking.”
Mercer asked what Mom had entrusted to him.
Wren refused to discuss details over the phone.
Attorney-client privilege did not end simply because the client died, he said.
Mercer told him there was an active homicide investigation.
That changed the conversation.
Wren agreed to come to the sheriff’s office with records.
Before hanging up, he asked one thing.
“Did Natalie receive the book?”
I felt cold.
“How do you know about the book?”
Wren did not answer me directly.
“Eleanor wanted a chain only Natalie could complete.”
Dad looked at me.
The old anger returned.
Not at Mom.
At the fact that she had been forced to build these elaborate paths while everyone around her smiled across dinner tables.
Wren arrived ninety minutes later carrying a leather briefcase.
He looked older than Harold but steadier.
He shook Dad’s hand.
Then mine.
“I’m sorry we’re meeting this way.”
Dad did not exchange pleasantries.
“What did Eleanor give you?”
Wren sat.
“A sealed trust packet.”
“What trust?”
“One she created outside your primary estate plan.”
Dad stared.
“Why?”
“She believed assets were being diverted.”
Mercer asked whether the trust still existed.
“Yes.”
“Assets?”
“Financial records, mostly. A few account interests.”
Dad frowned.
“Whose?”
Wren opened the briefcase.
“Yours.”
Dad stood.
“I never created anything with you.”
“No.”
“Then Eleanor transferred my assets?”
Wren shook his head.
“She did not transfer ownership. She documented interests that already belonged to you but were held elsewhere.”
Harold’s informal investments.
Dad sat again.
Wren removed an envelope.
“Eleanor suspected Harold had been using nominee accounts.”
Mercer asked what that meant in this case.
“Assets registered under other names while beneficial ownership remained concealed.”
“How much?”
Wren looked at Dad.
“As of three years ago, approximately six hundred thousand dollars.”
Dad laughed once.
Not from amusement.
“Six hundred?”
“That was the documented portion.”
I stared at him.
“Dad, did you know you had that kind of money outside your main accounts?”
“No.”
Wren explained.
Dad had invested modest amounts with Harold over decades.
Some succeeded.
Properties appreciated.
Private notes paid interest.
Harold rolled gains into new deals.
Dad rarely asked for statements because Harold was his oldest friend.
By the time Mom investigated, the network had become substantial.
Harold had begun siphoning from it.
Then Grant.
Then Mallory.
Mercer asked what Mom had hidden in my book.
Wren hesitated.
“I was told there would be a ledger.”
“The original?”
“Yes.”
“Mallory’s?”
“Not precisely.”
He opened a folder.
The ledger documented every payment routed through Harold’s nominee accounts.
Some legitimate.
Some not.
Names.
Dates.
Cash movements.
County officials.
Private contractors.
Grant.
Shaw.
Diane.
Mallory.
Mom had realized Harold’s investment network had become the financial backbone of the corruption scheme.
Dad looked stunned.
“So they used my money.”
“In part.”
“To bribe people.”
“Yes.”
Dad’s face hardened in a way I had never seen.
They had not only stolen from him.
They had turned his trust into machinery for crimes he despised.
Wren said the book had likely contained the original coded ledger plus a key identifying each account.
“Did Eleanor ever give you a copy?” Mercer asked.
“Partial.”
“Where is it?”
Wren opened the envelope.
Inside were photocopies.
Not enough to prove everything alone.
Enough to show structure.
The initials matched Mom’s strip of paper.
R.M.
E.S.
H.P.
G.C.
D.K.
Several county employees.
Two contractors.
One bank officer.
Mercer’s expression became grim.
“This is bigger than one judge.”
Wren nodded.
“That is why Eleanor did not trust local channels.”
Dad asked, “Then why didn’t she go federal?”
“She was preparing to.”
“What stopped her?”
Wren looked at him.
“You know what stopped her.”
Silence.
Mom’s death.
I asked whether Wren knew where the complete ledger had been hidden.
“In the book, if her plan remained unchanged.”
“Then Grant has it.”
“Possibly.”
Mercer asked what the ledger would be worth to Mallory.
Wren answered without hesitation.
“His freedom.”
That explained Grant’s danger.
If Grant possessed proof that could destroy Mallory, Grant had leverage.
If Mallory caught him first, Grant had a death sentence.
Dad looked at me.
“And Grant thinks I’ll protect him.”
I said nothing.
We both knew he might.
Not from prosecution.
Not from consequences.
But from being murdered.
Whatever Grant had done, Dad had already told us the hardest truth.
He was still the child Dad had raised.
Mercer received another call.
A highway camera had captured Grant’s stolen van.
It entered Millstone County.
Then disappeared.
A second vehicle appeared fourteen minutes later.
Black SUV.
Registered to a shell company.
The company’s incorporation attorney was Samuel Wren’s old law partner.
Wren frowned.
“That partner died seven years ago.”
Mercer searched the corporate filings.
The beneficial ownership was hidden.
But one address appeared repeatedly.
A warehouse on Industrial Road.
Dad knew it.
“Harold stored equipment there.”
Wren looked toward him.
“It was one of the nominee properties.”
Mercer deployed state police.
The warehouse was empty.
Recently emptied.
A folding table remained.
Two chairs.
Coffee still warm.
On the floor lay pages torn from an old book.
My heart jumped.
Photographs arrived.
Green cloth cover.
Gold lettering.
The Secret Garden.
Dad lowered his head.
Grant had destroyed the book to reach what was inside.
But officers found no ledger.
Only the hollowed rectangle cut into the center pages.
Whatever Mom had hidden there was gone.
Then a trooper found blood.
Small drops leading toward the rear loading door.
Grant’s?
Mallory’s?
Someone else’s?
The answer came from a fingerprint on the table.
Robert Mallory.
Dad stared.
“So they met.”
Mercer nodded.
Grant had reached Mallory.
Or Mallory had reached Grant.
The warehouse cameras had been disconnected.
But a nearby gas station captured the black SUV leaving.
Two figures were inside.
Grant was driving.
Mallory sat beside him.
That surprised everyone.
If Grant had been captured, why was he driving?
If Mallory was escaping, why trust Grant?
I looked at the still frame.
“Because Grant has the ledger.”
Dad turned.
“And Mallory needs him alive until he gets it.”
Mercer said, “Or Grant is forcing Mallory to help him.”
Either way, their relationship had changed.
The next camera showed the SUV heading toward the interstate.
West.
Mercer ordered alerts.
Then Wren noticed something on Mom’s partial ledger.
One property number.
He circled it.
“This account funded a parcel.”
“Where?”
Wren entered the number into a property database.
The address appeared.
A farmhouse forty miles west.
Owned by a trust controlled through one of Harold’s nominee accounts.
Dad’s face changed.
“I know that place.”
“What is it?”
“Harold used to call it the hunting farm.”
“Did Grant know it?”
“Yes.”
“Mallory?”
Dad thought.
“Probably.”
Mercer sent teams.
The drive took them forty minutes.
We listened to every radio update.
The farmhouse was dark.
SUV parked outside.
Back door open.
No response.
Troopers entered.
Living room empty.
Kitchen empty.
Upstairs empty.
Then someone reported movement in the barn.
Mercer leaned toward the radio.
“Hold perimeter.”
A man emerged.
Hands raised.
Grant.
Dad stood.
Grant’s shirt was stained with blood.
He shouted that he was unarmed.
Troopers ordered him to his knees.
He complied.
Dad whispered, “Where’s Mallory?”
Mercer asked the same thing through radio.
Grant’s answer came from the trooper.
“He says Mallory is inside the barn.”
“Alive?”
Pause.
Then the trooper returned.
“Unknown.”
Another team entered.
Thirty seconds later came the report.
One male victim.
Gunshot wound.
Still breathing.
Robert Mallory.
Dad exhaled.
Grant had not fled.
Not this time.
Troopers searched him.
No ledger.
Mercer grabbed the radio.
“Ask him where it is.”
The question was relayed.
Grant looked toward the body camera.
For one strange moment, it felt as if he were looking directly at Dad.
Then he answered.
“Tell my father I’ll give it back when he comes to hear what Mallory did to Mom.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Grant Refused to Surrender Mom’s Ledger Until Dad Faced Him, but His Version of Her Death Contained One More Betrayal
My Sister Announced Our Father’s Death Before Breakfast, but the Man Eating Across From Me Had Other Plans
Part 9 of 27
