Chapter 3
Lake Mercer was forty minutes away.
We went that night.
Me.
Harper.
Rafe, my senior capo.
Preston came because I wanted him to see whatever he had been willing to hurt his sister for.
Lydia stayed at the estate under guard.
Gabriel’s house had not changed.
Gray stone.
Dark water.
Pine trees leaning toward the roof.
My brother bought it when I was twenty-eight and told everyone it was where he went when Whitlock became too loud.
I had not entered since he died.
The brass key opened the lower study.
Not the front door.
A room beneath the library.
Gabriel called it the Quiet Room.
One desk.
One chair.
Shelves.
An old cassette player.
And a locked wooden cabinet.
Preston stopped at the threshold.
“You knew about this room?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you search it after he died?”
“Because Gabriel asked me not to.”
My son laughed bitterly.
“And you listened?”
“Yes.”
That confused him.
Power teaches people to assume boundaries are weakness.
Sometimes respect simply looks like leaving a dead man’s room closed.
Harper approached the cabinet.
A brass plate read:
FOR MARCUS — WHEN SILAS RETURNS.
My breathing stopped.
Nine years.
Gabriel expected this.
I unlocked the cabinet.
Inside sat four cassette tapes.
A black signet ring.
Three photographs.
And one folded letter in Evelyn’s handwriting.
Not Gabriel’s.
My wife had been here.
Harper covered her mouth.
I opened the letter first.
Marcus,
I am sorry I did not tell you.
Gabriel made me promise I would wait until Silas moved again.
He was afraid if you knew too early, you would confront the wrong person before we understood who inside Whitlock had already chosen Vale.
I looked at Preston.
He went pale.
The letter continued.
If Preston is looking for this key, then Silas reached him before you did.
May you like
My son stepped backward.
His mother had predicted him too.
