I SPENT 3 YEARS IN PRISON FOR A CRIME I NEVER COMMITTED. WHEN I RETURNED HOME, MY STEPMOTHER SAID MY FATHER WAS DEAD AND THREW ME OUT. THEN A CEMETERY GUARD REVEALED THE SECRET MY FATHER HAD LEFT BEHIND…

Nobody spoke. Nobody explained where we were going. One of his men took my phone and searched my pockets, finding nothing except the brass key.

When the SUV finally stopped, I recognized the iron gates of our family estate.

The house had changed since my last visit. New security cameras covered the walls. A stone fountain stood where Dad's vegetable garden used to be, and expensive sports cars filled the driveway.

Our home had become a fortress.

Carter dragged me through the front door.

Reagan waited in the living room beside a blazing fireplace. She wore a cream-colored suit and held a glass of wine.

“Finnley,” she said pleasantly. “You look terrible.”

“Three years in prison will do that.”

She smiled as though I'd complimented her.

“Sit down.”

I stayed standing.

Carter struck the back of my knees, forcing me into a chair.

Reagan placed my mother's music box on the table.

“Your father was sentimental about this ridiculous thing. He kept it even after your mother died. I never understood why.”

“Then why do you want it?”

“Because Camden hid something inside it.”

She opened the lid.

The little ballerina turned beneath the glass dome, revolving to a melody I remembered from childhood. Reagan tilted the box, tapped its base, and examined the hinges.

Nothing happened.

“Do you know how to open the hidden compartment?” she asked.

“No.”

She slapped me.

I tasted blood.

“You're a terrible liar.”

“Then you should know I'm telling the truth.”

Carter laughed.

Reagan placed the music box on the table and walked behind me.

“Your father believed he could outsmart everyone. He made secret agreements, hid money, and thought he could protect his precious son from the consequences of his own mistakes.”

“Why did you tell me he died of cancer?”

The smile vanished from her face.

“Because people need simple stories. Cancer is tragic. A heartbroken widow is sympathetic. A criminal son who returns home demanding answers is not.”

“So you fabricated his death?”

She said nothing.

That silence told me more than a confession could have.

Carter crouched beside me.

“Here's what's going to happen. You'll give us the key, tell us where the original will is hidden, and then you'll leave town. Permanently.”

“And if I refuse?”

Reagan picked up the music box.

“Then your mother's final gift will be the last thing you ever see.”

Something snapped inside me.

“You didn't just take Dad's house. You erased every photograph of my mother. You destroyed my life and sent me to prison. What did she ever do to you?”

For a split second, Reagan's face twisted with raw hatred.

“She took everything from me.”

Then she caught herself and smiled again.

“Take him to the basement.”

Carter's men hauled me to my feet. As we passed the hallway, I saw a small framed photograph tucked behind a vase.

It showed my father with a woman I didn't recognize. She stood beside him in front of a hospital entrance, her hand resting on his arm.

On the back of the frame, somebody had written a date.

SEPTEMBER 14.

The date of my father's supposed funeral.

Before the men pushed me through the basement door, I snatched the photograph and slipped it into my sleeve.

The basement smelled of wet concrete and gasoline. Carter locked me in a storage room filled with discarded furniture.

“Think about your choices,” he said through the door.

His footsteps faded.

I waited until I heard the front door close upstairs. Then I examined the room.

My hands were tied loosely with plastic restraints. A broken metal bracket protruded from a shelving unit. After several minutes of cutting and twisting, I freed one wrist.

I found a narrow window behind a stack of boxes and forced it open.

Outside, rain hammered the driveway.

I climbed through and dropped into the bushes, landing hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

I could have run straight to the road.

Instead, I circled the mansion.

A light was burning in Dad's old study.

Through the window, I saw Reagan on the telephone.

“I'm telling you, Camden is no longer a problem,” she said. “His son has the key. Once we find the document, the company is ours.”

She listened, then added something that made my blood turn cold.

“No. Finnley doesn't know his father is being kept alive.”

The telephone slipped from my hand.