Chapter 4 - The Blue Room
“What’s the blue room?” Detective Hale asked.
Daniel shoved his phone into his pocket.
“Nothing.”
Mara turned toward him. “I’ve never heard of a blue room.”
“It’s an old storage room.”
“At the house?”
Daniel’s face changed. Not much. Just enough.
Hale stood. “I’ll get a warrant.”
Daniel laughed without humor. “For a room?”
“For whatever makes your mother nervous enough to text you about it.”
After he left, Mara and Daniel were alone.
For a full minute, neither spoke.
Finally Daniel said, “You should not have seen that.”
Mara looked at the ceiling.
“That’s your apology?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He sat near the bed. “Mara, my father was not a good man.”
“You cut a curtain while I was hanging from it.”
“I know.”
She turned to him.
He was crying again, but she felt nothing this time.
“I panicked.”
“No. Panic is dropping the knife. Panic is screaming. You opened it.”
Daniel looked down.
That landed.
“I made a choice,” he said.
“Yes.”
The honesty was almost worse.
He told her the blue room had belonged to his father, Charles Cross, who kept physical records there—contracts, private ledgers, audio tapes. After Charles died, Evelyn locked it.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Daniel hesitated.
Mara pressed the call button for the nurse.
“Wait.”
“Why?”
“Because if Hale opens that room before I explain, my mother will destroy what she can.”
Mara stared at him.
“Your mother is at the house.”
Daniel nodded.
“So you’re warning me that evidence is being destroyed right now.”
He closed his eyes.
She hit the call button again.
Daniel reached for her hand.
She pulled away so fast the IV tugged.
He froze.
Then his face hardened.
A small, ugly switch.
“You think Teresa is loyal to you?”
Mara said nothing.
“She worked for my father for thirty years.”
“So?”
“She knew about the trust before you did.”
Mara’s heart kicked.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying Teresa has been keeping secrets too.”
The nurse entered.
Mara said, “Call Detective Hale. Now.”
Daniel stood.
As he walked to the door, he looked back.
“Ask Teresa why she put your name in my father’s ledger six years before we met.”
Then he left.
Mara sat perfectly still.
Six years before they met.
Her name.
May you like
In Charles Cross’s private ledger.
