Chapter 6 - The Photograph on His PhoneFor several seconds, neither of us moved.
The photograph on Brandon's phone showed the antique watch resting inside its open case. The cracked crystal caught the light, and the brown paper wrapping lay beside it.
Someone had taken the picture inside the mansion.
Someone who knew exactly what I had given my son.
And someone who had been close enough to photograph it after I left.
“Give me the phone,” I said.
Brandon pulled it away.
“No.”
“Then show me the message.”
He hesitated before placing the phone on my desk.
The message had come from Victor Sloane.
Tonight. Bring your father's original documents. Don't make me ask twice.
Below it was a second message.
You have until midnight.
Brandon's face had gone pale.
“I don't understand.”
I sat down slowly.
“Which documents does he mean?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Dad, I swear.”
I studied the photograph again.
The watch had been lying inside its case when I left. If someone had photographed it afterward, they had either entered the mansion without Brandon's knowledge or had received the picture from somebody who had been present.
I enlarged the image.
In the upper-right corner, a reflection appeared in the polished surface of the dining table.
A woman's hand.
On her wrist was a narrow gold bracelet with a small diamond clasp.
Amber wore that bracelet almost every day.
Brandon noticed the detail at the same moment I did.
His expression crumpled.
“No,” he whispered.
I waited.
“She told me she was going to visit her sister last night.”
“Did she?”
He shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I picked up my phone.
“Richard, come over immediately. We may have a problem involving Victor Sloane and a possible attempt to obtain original corporate documents.”
Brandon began pacing.
“This can't be happening.”
I watched him.
“You need to stop treating this as something that is happening to you. If you gave Victor or Amber access to confidential documents, you may be part of the problem.”
“I didn't give them anything!”
“Then help me establish that.”
He stopped pacing and stared at me.
For the first time, I saw something beyond anger in his expression.
Fear.
Not fear of losing money or status.
Fear that the person he had married might have been using him.
I had never liked Amber particularly. She was charming when she wanted something and icy when she had already obtained it. But I had never imagined she would deliberately conspire to take control of a company she did not own.
“What are the original documents?” I asked.
Brandon sat down.
“Company records. Old contracts. Financial statements. The incorporation papers. I think there's a box in the mansion's study.”
“Why would Victor want those?”
“I don't know.”
“Think.”
He pressed both hands against his forehead.
“Last year, you mentioned a development project in Austin. You said there was a dispute over a parcel of land and that some old records might establish who owned the mineral rights.”
I remembered.
A development company I had worked with decades earlier had discovered valuable subsurface rights beneath a parcel included in a commercial transaction. The paperwork was complicated, and the dispute had remained unresolved.
I had not mentioned it to Brandon in any detail.
But someone else might have discovered it through archived records.
“Did Victor ask you about that project?”
Brandon nodded.
“He asked whether you still held the original contracts. I told him you kept everything.”
My stomach tightened.
The dispute involved far more than the mansion.
If the original records established that Redwood Capital held a valuable contractual interest, someone might have been trying to gain access to the documents before the claim could be resolved.
“Brandon, does Amber know where I keep my company files?”
He looked away.
“She has been to your house.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “She knows where the cabinets are.”
Richard arrived fifteen minutes later.
We explained everything, including the photograph and Victor's deadline.
Richard listened without interrupting.
When we finished, he said, “No one is going to meet Victor tonight. No one is going to hand over original documents. We will preserve the evidence, notify the appropriate authorities if necessary, and determine exactly what has happened.”
Brandon looked miserable.
“What if he does something to Amber?”
Richard's expression hardened.
“Has Victor threatened her?”
“Not directly.”
“Then we don't invent a threat. We establish the facts.”
I turned to Brandon.
“You said she went to visit her sister?”
“Yes.”
“Call her.”
He dialed.
The phone rang six times before going to voicemail.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Finally, he sent a message.
Where are you? Call me immediately.
We waited.
At 5:46, his phone vibrated.
A single message appeared.
Don't come looking for me.
Brandon read it twice.
Then another message arrived.
This time, the words were unmistakable.
Your father has already ruined everything. If you want to save what remains, find the blue box.
He looked up at me.
“What blue box?”
I didn't answer.
Because I had just remembered something Eleanor had hidden away shortly before her death.
A blue metal box containing private letters, old contracts, and a sealed envelope she had insisted I never open unless our family was in serious danger.
May you like
I had kept it in a locked cabinet for seven years.
And I had never told Brandon it existed.
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