Chapter 6 - Someone Had Entered the HouseBy the time I returned to Birch Hollow, the sky had turned the color of dirty wool.
I parked near the road and sat with both hands on the steering wheel. The documents were locked inside a case on the passenger seat. I had made digital copies and sent them to a secure email account, but I still felt as though the truth might vanish if I let it out of my sight.
My phone rang.
Detective Quinn.
“Where are you?”
“Ten minutes from the house.”
“Don't go inside.”
I straightened.
“Why?”
“One of my officers drove past the property twenty minutes ago. The front door was open.”
“I locked it before I left.”
“Did you give anyone a key?”
“No.”
“Stay in your car. I'm sending someone.”
She hung up.
I looked toward the narrow road leading to the house.
The front door really was open.
I could see it between the trees, a dark rectangle beneath the sagging porch roof.
Every reasonable instinct told me to drive away.
Instead, I called Frank and told him what had happened. He promised to meet the police at the property.
While I waited, I noticed a fresh set of tire tracks in the mud beside the porch. They were too deep to have been left by a small car. Whoever had come here had driven close to the house and reversed out.
The officer arrived first, followed by Quinn.
They cleared the building room by room.
Nothing had been stolen.
At least, nothing obvious.
The steel box remained in police custody. The grandfather clock stood undisturbed, and the exposed wall had been covered with temporary boarding.
But in the upstairs bedroom, the officer discovered the mattress overturned and the floorboards pried loose beneath the bed.
Someone had searched the room.
“They knew something was here,” Quinn said.
I stared at the splintered wood.
“Could they have been looking for the same documents I found at the bank?”
“Possibly. Did you tell anyone where you were going?”
“No.”
“Your father?”
“No.”
She gave me a hard look.
“Are you certain?”
I hesitated.
My father had people who knew everything about the family. Lawyers, accountants, assistants, business associates. He could have learned about the bank through an old document or a private connection.
Or someone had been watching me.
“Evelyn, I need the full truth. Did you find anything else?”
I took a breath.
“Yes.”
I told her about Account 317, the ledger, and Martin Vale's statement. She listened without interrupting, then asked me to forward copies of the documents.
When I finished, she walked to the window and looked out at the wet trees.
“Martin Vale's death was one of the reasons the warehouse fire was investigated so thoroughly. He was a financial auditor who had threatened to report irregularities in the Callahan accounts.”
“Did the police suspect my father?”
“His name appeared in the preliminary file. He claimed he had left the warehouse before the fire started. Two employees supported his account, and the investigation shifted toward faulty wiring.”
“But my grandmother's photograph shows him there.”
“It establishes that he was there at a certain time. It doesn't establish when he left.”
“What about the video?”
Quinn looked at me.
“Our technicians recovered more footage than expected. It shows a vehicle entering the warehouse grounds after the time your father claims he went home.”
“His car?”
“We're checking the registration.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Then why did the case close?”
“The person who handled the financial investigation withdrew his report. Several records disappeared. The fire investigator retired shortly afterward. By the time the inconsistencies were formally raised, there wasn't enough admissible evidence to proceed.”
“Who withdrew the report?”
Quinn's silence answered before her words did.
“An investigator named Daniel Mercer.”
The name felt familiar, although I couldn't remember why.
Then I recalled a photograph displayed in my grandmother's hallway for years. A group of men stood outside the family warehouse, holding champagne glasses. My grandfather was in the center. Richard was beside him.
At the edge of the picture stood a younger man with a narrow face.
Daniel Mercer.
“He knew my grandfather.”
“Yes. He was among the first officers at the scene.”
I looked toward the broken bedroom floor.
Someone had broken into the house within hours of my visit to the bank.
Someone knew I was recovering the past.
And now the police had given me another name connected to the night my grandfather died.
“What happened to Mercer?” I asked.
“He resigned twelve years ago. Since then, he's worked private security.”
“Where?”
Quinn took out her phone and showed me a business card on the screen.
Mercer Protective Consulting.
The listed address was on the other side of the city.
Before I could say anything, the radio on her shoulder crackled.
An officer had found fresh footprints behind the house leading toward the old well.
They stopped at a patch of recently disturbed earth.
Beneath the soil was a second brass key.
This one carried no number.
May you like
Only a word.
MERCER.
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