Chapter 7 - The House on Route 22
The investigation changed overnight.
Detectives sealed the greenhouse.
Financial-crimes investigators requested records from Hayes Development.
Julian hired two criminal-defense attorneys before sunrise.
Agatha hired three.
Conrad took Elliot home.
For the first time since the party, the boy slept.
Conrad did not.
He sat outside Elliot’s bedroom until 4 a.m.
At 4:17, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Silence.
“Hello?”
A woman breathed on the other end.
Then:
“Caroline trusted the wrong person.”
Conrad stood.
“Who is this?”
The call ended.
He immediately contacted Detective Sloan.
The number was spoofed.
By morning, the recording was added to the case.
Elliot woke around seven.
He found Conrad making pancakes.
“Are Grandma and Uncle Julian going to jail?”
Conrad put down the spatula.
“I don’t know.”
“They chained me.”
“I know.”
“Is that illegal?”
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you know?”
Conrad smiled sadly.
“Because grown-up rules can take a long time.”
Elliot considered this.
“That’s stupid.”
“Sometimes.”
They ate together.
Then Elliot asked the question Conrad feared.
“Did Grandma hurt Mom?”
Conrad looked at his son.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Uncle Julian?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Elliot pushed syrup across his plate.
“But you’ll find out?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Conrad remembered making another promise at the gates.
We can leave whenever you want.
He had kept that one.
Now he made a harder promise.
“I promise.”
At noon Sloan called.
They had located the Route 22 property.
An abandoned equestrian estate purchased by Briar Holdings.
Conrad wanted to go.
Sloan initially refused.
Then she reconsidered after learning Caroline had specifically documented the location.
Police searched it first.
No immediate danger.
Conrad arrived two hours later.
The property contained a neglected farmhouse, barn, and two sheds.
Inside the barn, investigators found old Hayes Development files.
Most had been shredded.
But one locked cabinet remained intact.
They found accounting ledgers.
Corporate seals.
Blank letterhead.
And a stack of payments made to Martin Cole.
Conrad stared.
“Martin was being paid?”
Sloan examined the records.
“Monthly for twelve years.”
“For what?”
“That’s what we need to know.”
A detective called from the farmhouse.
They had found blood.
Old.
Not enough to identify visually.
A stain beneath recently removed carpet.
Conrad’s stomach tightened.
“Martin?”
“Maybe.”
Then Sloan found a photograph pinned inside the cabinet.
Agatha.
Martin.
Richard.
The three stood outside the farmhouse fifteen years earlier.
On the back, Richard had written:
If anything happens to me, Martin knows why.
Conrad closed his eyes.
His father had known.
Not only about the money.
About danger.
“Why would Martin accept payments from the people he was supposedly helping expose?”
Sloan asked.
Conrad thought about it.
“Maybe they weren’t paying him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe my father was.”
“Through Briar?”
“Could be.”
Sloan nodded slowly.
“Then someone later took control of the same company.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Every officer froze.
Sloan drew her weapon.
“Police.”
Footsteps.
Then a crash.
Someone ran.
Officers surged toward the stairs.
A rear window shattered.
Conrad moved to follow.
Sloan grabbed him.
“Stay here.”
They caught the intruder fifty yards into the woods.
Not Julian.
Not Agatha.
A woman.
Blue jacket.
Gray hair.
Elliot’s mysterious lady.
Conrad recognized her from childhood photographs.
“Margaret?”
Margaret Cole.
Martin’s older sister.
She had once worked as Agatha’s personal assistant.
She disappeared from Hayes Manor after Richard’s death.
Conrad had not seen her in fourteen years.
Margaret looked at him through tears.
“You have Caroline’s tapes?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
She closed her eyes.
“Then one is missing.”
Conrad stared.
“There were four?”
“Caroline gave the last one to Martin.”
“Where is he?”
Margaret looked toward the barn.
“I don’t know anymore.”
“What was on the fourth tape?”
May you like
She took a trembling breath.
“The person who followed Caroline the night she died.”
