Chương 6
“Did she?”
“Some. Her main working folder was deleted Tuesday night. We may recover portions. Her email account shows a security alert from an unfamiliar device.”
“Eleanor’s?”
“We are examining devices.”
“Sebastian’s?”
“We are examining devices.”
“You say that when you know and don’t want to tell me.”
“I also say it when we are examining devices.”
Cole placed a clear evidence bag on the table. Inside was Rosalie’s silver locket.
“The clasp is damaged,” she said. “The hospital removed it. Rosalie has asked for it.”
“She can talk?”
“Briefly.”
Theodore stood so quickly his chair tipped backward.
Cole did not move. “She asked for you, too. Before that happens, I need to know whether you recognize what is inside the locket.”
She turned the bag over.
The locket had opened during handling. One side held a tiny photograph of Theodore at twelve, squinting into sunlight. The other contained a circle of cream paper cut to fit the frame. Four numbers had been written along its edge: 3, 11, 19, 4.
Theodore leaned closer.
“What are they?” Cole asked.
He knew the numbers. He wished he did not.
“Our father used them.”
“For what?”
“When he wanted us to find something without Sebastian knowing.”
Cole’s eyes sharpened. “Explain.”
Their father had liked codes that barely deserved the name. He hid birthday gifts by writing numbers that corresponded to words in whatever book happened to be on the kitchen table. Rosalie called it his lazy spy game. Theodore had loved it until the year their father hid a new bicycle in the gardener’s shed and forgot to give him the clue for six weeks.
“Four numbers means four words,” Theodore said. “The book matters.”
“Which book?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could the locket be the clue?”
“It belonged to our mother.”
“Did it contain this paper before?”
“No. It had a picture of her.”
Naomi looked toward the living room. “Rosalie brought me a box of family books last month. She said the estate library was being inventoried.”
They searched the box under Cole’s supervision. Most of the books were old novels with Theodore’s mother’s name written inside. One was a thin volume of children’s poems. Another was a water-damaged field guide to local birds. Near the bottom lay a copy of The Secret Garden with a cracked green spine.
Theodore opened it.
Their father had read it aloud to both children after their mother became ill. Rosalie had hated the accents he used. Theodore had pretended to hate them because she did.
Cole counted words on pages three, eleven, nineteen, and four. The result made no sense.
“Maybe chapters,” Naomi said.
Theodore shook his head. “He always counted from the first full sentence.”
They tried again.
The words were east, glass, winter, and key.
Naomi said, “That is either a clue or the worst home decoration advice I have ever heard.”
Theodore knew the place.
The eastern glasshouse had been abandoned after a heating pipe burst two winters earlier. It stood beyond the formal gardens, connected to the estate by a gravel service road. Rosalie and Theodore had hidden there during their father’s memorial reception when they could no longer tolerate people telling them how proud he had been.
“There’s a loose stone beneath the old boiler,” Theodore said. “Our father kept a key there.”
Cole took out her phone.
“You’re not going without me,” Theodore said.
“I am absolutely going without you.”
“It’s my house.”
“It is a potential crime scene.”
“I know where the stone is.”
“You can describe it.”
“There are two boilers.”
Cole stared at him for several seconds. “You will remain in the vehicle until I say otherwise.”
“I won’t.”
“Then you remain here.”
Naomi opened a cabinet and took out three clean mugs. “I would like the record to show that neither of you is negotiating.”
They reached the Vale estate shortly after noon with two additional officers and a forensic technician. News vans lined the public road outside the gates. Someone recognized Theodore through the rear window and began running alongside the car until security closed the gate.
The conservatory had been sealed. Through the glass doors, Theodore saw the ivory coffin exactly where they had left it. Clear evidence markers surrounded the broken panel. The mallet had been removed.
Sebastian stood on the front steps speaking to an attorney. Eleanor was not visible.
Theodore stayed in the car until Cole gave permission. He led them along the service road beneath rows of leafless lindens. The eastern glasshouse appeared beyond a hedge, its iron frame streaked with rust, several panes replaced by cloudy plastic after the winter damage.
Inside, dead vines hung from wooden trellises. The air smelled of wet soil and old metal. Theodore found the boiler with the red valve and knelt beside its brick base. His fingers worked beneath the loose stone until they touched cold brass.
He pulled out a small key.
It opened a padlocked cabinet hidden behind gardening supplies.
Inside were three binders, an external hard drive, two prepaid phones, and a sealed envelope with Sebastian’s name written across it.
Cole photographed everything before touching it.
Theodore looked at the envelope. “Open that.”
“It is evidence.”
“It has his name.”
“I can read.”
“He’ll destroy it.”
“He will not have access.”
“You don’t know what access he has.”
Cole turned toward him. “Theodore, the reason evidence survives people with power is that someone follows a process when every emotion in the room says not to.”
He looked at the hard drive, then at the envelope. “Processes can be bought.”
“Yes,” she said. “People can be bought. Processes leave more footprints.”
It was not reassuring, but it was specific.
May you like
Sebastian entered the glasshouse before the search ended. His attorney trailed him, protesting that no one had authorized Theodore’s access to unsafe structures. Sebastian ignored the attorney and looked at the cabinet.
For the first time since the coffin opened, he appeared afraid in a way Theodore recognized. Not shocked. Not ashamed. Afraid.
