Chapter 13 - The Secret Beneath the Fourth CottageFor several minutes, I couldn't move.
The beneficiary register had disappeared from the bank.
Someone had used a forged authorization bearing my name to access the records.
And Harland had been smiling when the news arrived, as though he had known the theft would occur before we even reached the bank.
Daniel was the first to break the silence.
“We need to establish exactly what was removed.”
I turned toward him.
“Then let's go to the bank.”
“We should contact the authorities first.”
“Do that. I'll meet you there.”
Daniel hesitated.
“Luca, don't confront Harland alone.”
“I'm not going to confront anyone. I'm going to find out how someone accessed a safe-deposit box without my authorization.”
I looked at the photograph of the empty document box.
“And I'm going to discover whether the person who took the register knew what was inside it.”
We arrived at the bank less than an hour later.
The manager, a nervous man named Robert Hayes, met us in a private conference room. He had already contacted the bank's legal department and arranged for the relevant access records to be preserved.
He looked deeply uncomfortable.
“Mr. Moretti, I want to begin by apologizing. The access request appeared valid when it was submitted.”
“What did it authorize?”
“Access to a safe-deposit box registered under Margaret Bell's name. The request included a power of attorney and supporting identification.”
“Who submitted it?”
“A representative of a legal services company acting on behalf of the trustee.”
I stared at him.
“I'm the trustee.”
“Yes, sir. That's why the authorization raised concerns during our subsequent review. The signature on the form was yours, but our verification team has since identified inconsistencies.”
“Did your staff compare the signature with the original specimen?”
“They did. The document was certified by an external notary, and the representative provided additional identification. However, we have placed the transaction under review.”
I felt a surge of anger.
“Someone presented a forged signature, and your staff handed over private records.”
The manager lowered his gaze.
“I understand your concern.”
“Do you?”
Daniel intervened before I could continue.
“Mr. Hayes, we need a complete record of the access request, including the time of entry, the identification presented, and any available surveillance footage. We also need confirmation of which documents were removed.”
The manager nodded.
He opened a folder.
“The box contained several documents, but the inventory was not sufficiently detailed for us to establish the exact contents. The representative signed a receipt acknowledging the removal of one sealed envelope and a document packet.”
“Who signed the receipt?”
He turned the page.
The name was unfamiliar.
The signature, however, was clear.
Nathan Pike.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
“That's Vale's legal associate.”
I leaned forward.
“Do you have a photograph?”
The manager showed us the security footage.
The image was grainy, but the man's face was visible.
It was the same associate who had accompanied Marcus Vale to my estate the previous day.
Pike had entered the bank carrying a leather briefcase. He had presented the authorization, collected the documents, and left less than fifteen minutes later.
There was no sign of Harland.
That didn't prove Harland had ordered the theft, but it established a direct link between Vale's representative and the missing records.
“Has the bank contacted the authorities?” Daniel asked.
“Yes. We are cooperating with the investigation.”
I stared at the footage.
Pike had not rushed.
He had not appeared nervous.
He had behaved like a man collecting documents he believed he was entitled to possess.
That was what made the whole thing so disturbing.
He hadn't broken into the bank.
He had persuaded the institution to open the door for him.
Exactly what Harland had done inside my estate.
I turned toward Daniel.
“We need to notify Clara and Margaret immediately.”
Daniel nodded.
He stepped into the adjoining room to make the calls.
I remained with the bank manager, examining the receipt and authorization form.
One line caught my attention.
The request had been submitted at 8:42 a.m.
That was nearly three hours before we learned that the documents were missing.
The form had been prepared before we even arrived at Margaret's residence.
Someone had anticipated our next move.
I looked at the manager.
“Did the representative provide an explanation for why he needed the records?”
“He stated that the documents were required for an urgent property transaction.”
“Which transaction?”
“The acquisition of the eastern grounds.”
I slowly closed the folder.
They had stolen the register because they needed to remove the evidence before the transaction was stopped.
But the bank's records gave us something valuable.
We now had a documented chain connecting Vale's representative to the theft.
And if the original register was missing, we could still investigate the financial trail.
When Daniel returned, his expression was grim.
“Margaret is safe. Clara is safe. Neither of them authorized this request.”
“Good.”
“There is something else. Margaret says she deliberately divided the records after Evelyn's death.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“She kept a certified copy of the beneficiary register at the bank. She retained the original and the complete financial ledger separately, because Evelyn had warned her that Harland might try to seize the documents.”
“Where did she put them?”
Daniel looked toward the door.
“Beneath the fourth cottage.”
I stared at him.
We had been there twice.
We had found the underground room, the empty desk, and the wall safe behind the wooden panel.
The safe remained locked.
The important papers had been hidden inside it all along.
I stood immediately.
“Let's go.”
We returned to the estate with a locksmith and an independent witness.
The security supervisor had sealed the fourth cottage's entrance and preserved the remaining evidence. Nothing had been moved since our last visit.
The locksmith examined the wall safe for several minutes.
“This is an old model,” he said. “I can open it without damaging the surrounding structure, but I need the owner's authorization.”
I signed the form.
He worked carefully, testing the mechanism and using specialized tools to release the lock.
At last, something clicked.
The door opened.
Inside were several wrapped bundles of paper, a small metal case, and a cassette recorder covered in dust.
The top bundle contained an old property ledger.
The second contained the original housing covenant.
And the third contained a thick register bearing the names of the four protected households.
I lifted it carefully.
The cover was worn, but the binding remained intact.
On the first page, beneath the heading Protected Beneficiary Register, my father's signature appeared beside Evelyn's and Margaret's.
I turned the page.
Four names.
Four households.
Four sets of rights established under the original trust.
Evelyn Harland.
Margaret Bell.
Miriam Bennett.
Thomas Reed.
The same names we'd been tracking through the estate's records.
But what lay beneath the register was even more important.
An envelope addressed to my father.
The front bore a date from three weeks before his death.
I opened it.
Inside was a letter written by Evelyn.
Daniel and Luca,
If these records are being examined, then I believe the time has come for the truth to be made public.
The relief fund was created to protect employees facing hardship. Instead, money has been redirected through shell companies, while the names of the people who should have received it are used to conceal the transactions.
Harland has been preparing a transfer of the eastern grounds with assistance from Marcus Vale's organization. The transfer cannot proceed lawfully without the consent of the protected beneficiaries.
I have preserved the original register because the people named inside are not obstacles to the sale. They are the people the trust exists to protect.
I stopped reading.
The next paragraph was underlined.
Luca must understand that his father's signature has been used without his knowledge. I believe Harland obtained the signature from an earlier document and attached it to instructions that were never approved.
Daniel leaned closer.
I continued.
If these records are lost, the financial ledger and the witness statements should establish the pattern. Margaret knows where the remaining evidence is kept.
Do not trust a document simply because it bears a familiar name.
The letter ended with a sentence written in blue ink.
And do not allow Grace Bennett's child to grow up believing she must work to deserve a home.
For several seconds, I could not speak.
Nora's frightened voice echoed in my memory.
If I don't finish, Mama might lose our home.
Evelyn had written those words years before Nora was born.
She had anticipated the very cruelty I had witnessed in my laundry room.
I looked at Daniel.
“There's a witness statement.”
He lifted a sealed envelope from the metal case.
Inside was a signed declaration from a former accounting clerk, detailing irregular payments made through the relief fund and the attempted transfer of the eastern property.
Another document listed the dates on which the original records had been altered.
The earliest entry predated my father's death.
The latest was from three months ago.
Harland's name appeared beside several transactions.
So did the initials M.V.
Marcus Vale.
We had the pattern.
We had the original covenant.
We had the beneficiary register.
And we had documents showing that the disputed property transfer had been prepared through a series of unauthorized financial transactions.
But as Daniel placed the papers into a protective folder, I noticed something missing.
The final page of the witness statement had been torn away.
Only a narrow strip remained, containing the first few letters of a name.
CLA...
Clara.
Or someone else.
I looked at the metal case again.
The cassette recorder sat beneath the empty envelope.
A label was attached to its side.
Evelyn, final statement.
Daniel examined it.
“Do you have anything that can play this?”
“I believe the estate's archive contains an old cassette player.”
He called the security supervisor and asked him to locate one.
While we waited, I read Evelyn's letter again.
Her final statement could be decisive.
It might contain the names of the people involved, an explanation of how the forged documents were prepared, or details that had not been recorded elsewhere.
But there was another possibility.
It might reveal something about my father's final days that even I did not know.
A possibility made more disturbing by the photograph that had arrived the previous night.
Grace standing beside my father.
The message claiming she had been there when he died.
I turned toward Daniel.
“Did Grace work here when my father was ill?”
“Yes. She was employed as a junior housekeeper at the time. She left the estate for several years after her mother's death and returned later.”
“Then we need to establish exactly when she left, when she returned, and whether she had any contact with my father during his final weeks.”
Daniel nodded.
“We'll review the employment records.”
The cassette player arrived.
I inserted the tape.
A hiss filled the room, followed by the faint sound of paper moving across a desk.
Then a woman's voice emerged from the speaker.
Evelyn.
Her voice was calm, but exhaustion ran beneath every word.
My name is Evelyn Harland. I am making this recording because I no longer believe the written records can be trusted.
There was a pause.
Then she continued.
The eastern property is not the real prize. The real prize is control over the people whose names appear in the beneficiary register.
I leaned toward the speaker.
If those names can be erased, the land becomes easier to sell. If the people attached to those names can be frightened into signing away their rights, the transfer appears voluntary.
The recording crackled.
Then Evelyn said something that made Daniel stop writing.
Harland believes that removing the beneficiaries will erase the evidence. He is wrong.
A longer pause followed.
When Evelyn spoke again, her voice had changed.
She sounded afraid.
If anything happens to me, do not assume that my death was unrelated to the records.
The tape clicked.
Then came a final sentence.
And if Luca is ever forced to choose between protecting his reputation and protecting the people named in this register, I pray he remembers what his father taught him.
The recording ended.
Silence settled over the underground room.
I stared at the recorder.
Evelyn had been afraid that her death might be connected to the scheme.
We had no proof of that yet.
But her warning could no longer be dismissed as the suspicion of a grieving daughter.
There was a deliberate pattern of financial manipulation.
There were forged documents.
There was an attempted property transfer.
And there was a woman who had recorded her fears shortly before dying in an accident that had never been fully explained.
I removed the cassette and placed it inside a protective case.
“We're preserving everything,” I said. “No one handles these documents without a witness. Daniel, notify the investigators and arrange for independent forensic examination.”
He nodded.
I looked at the register.
For years, the records had been hidden beneath the foundation of a cottage that officially did not exist.
Now they were in our hands.
Harland had stolen the copy from the bank.
Vale's associate had carried it away.
They believed they had removed the last obstacle.
But they had taken the wrong version.
And somewhere in the estate's hidden archive was the evidence they had been trying to bury.
I closed the register.
Then I noticed a final page tucked into the back cover.
It contained a list of names, dates, and amounts.
At the bottom, in my father's handwriting, was a sentence addressed directly to me.
Luca, if Harland has reached this point, ask him who signed the order on the night I died.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
The night my father died.
The night Evelyn had warned me not to ignore.
The night someone had used my signature to authorize a transfer I never approved.
I stared at the page.
May you like
And for the first time, I wondered whether the greatest secret in my father's estate was not what Harland had stolen.
It was what happened to my father before I inherited the keys.
