Chapter 7 - THE BURNED BOOK
Emily did not scream.
She surprised herself with that.
She stared at the burned book in Diane’s hand and felt something colder than panic move through her.
Diane had always liked noise.
Crying.
Begging.
Doors slammed hard enough to make servants flinch.
Emily suddenly understood that silence could be a weapon too.
She said nothing.
Diane’s smile faded first.
“Emily.”
Priya stepped between them.
“Ms. Hale, this room is restricted.”
“I’m her mother.”
“Stepmother,” Emily said.
Diane’s eyes flicked toward her.
There it was.
The tiny tightening at the corner of her mouth.
Priya said, “You need to leave.”
Diane ignored her.
“I brought your shoes.”
Emily looked at the cream heels on the floor.
The same heels Diane had chosen for the dinner.
One strap still had dried mud on it from the garden.
“You locked me in a room with Graham Ambrose.”
Diane glanced at Priya.
“Emily has been under enormous stress.”
“Stop.”
“I don’t blame you for what you said online.”
“Stop.”
“You were frightened.”
Emily stood.
Her donated sneakers squeaked on the tile.
The sound was ridiculous.
She was glad for it.
“I was frightened when you hit me.”
Diane’s face remained composed.
Priya pulled out her phone.
“I’m calling security.”
Diane sighed.
“Fine.”
She laid the burned book on the bed.
“What a waste.”
Emily stared at it.
“You burned it.”
“I found it like that.”
“In my room.”
“Yes.”
“How did you know I needed it?”
Diane paused.
Too long.
Emily felt a small, savage satisfaction.
“Because someone told you.”
Diane’s eyes hardened.
Emily raised Matthew’s phone.
“Are you recording me?”
“No.”
Diane almost smiled.
Emily added, “Priya is.”
Diane turned.
Priya’s phone was raised.
For the first time that night, Diane looked caught.
Not guilty.
Caught.
There was a difference.
Security arrived.
Diane allowed herself to be escorted out, but at the door she looked back.
“You’re making this uglier than it needs to be.”
Emily whispered, “You started ugly.”
Diane stopped.
Something passed over her face.
Then she left.
Emily locked the door behind her.
Her knees gave out.
She sat on the floor.
Priya sat too.
Neither spoke.
After a minute, Priya said, “Your shoes really do squeak.”
Emily laughed through the tears she had been refusing to shed.
It was messy and embarrassing.
She covered her face.
Priya waited.
When Emily could breathe again, she picked up the burned book.
Most pages had been blackened around the edges.
Several fell loose when she opened it.
Page four was gone.
Page eleven was half burned.
Page twenty-seven was intact.
Emily stared at the page.
Her father had underlined a sentence in pencil.
Not the printed words.
The page number itself.
27.
Beside it was a tiny arrow pointing toward the binding.
Emily bent the book open farther.
A strip of paper had been glued inside the spine.
Diane had burned the cover but missed the hidden compartment.
Emily peeled the paper free.
It contained a string of letters and numbers.
A bank routing code.
And beneath it, one handwritten word.
MARGARET.
Emily called Matthew.
He answered on the first ring.
“Tell me you’re okay.”
“Diane came here.”
Silence.
“What?”
“She brought the book.”
“Security let her in?”
“Apparently expensive perfume is a credential.”
“Emily.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“Everyone keeps saying that like it’s useful.”
He exhaled.
“Fair.”
She almost told him not to say fair again.
Instead she said, “The book wasn’t empty.”
She read him the code.
Pike shouted in the background.
“Again.”
Emily repeated it.
There was a scrape, then Pike’s voice closer to the phone.
“That’s a safe-deposit routing prefix.”
“Which bank?”
“First Commonwealth.”
Emily knew it.
Her father had banked there for decades.
Matthew said, “We can be there when they open.”
“No.”
A pause.
“I’m going.”
“Emily—”
“If that box is in my mother’s name, I’m going.”
He did not argue.
That unsettled her more than an argument would have.
At 8:40 a.m., Emily walked into First Commonwealth wearing borrowed gray sweatpants, a navy sweatshirt, and squeaky white sneakers.
Matthew was waiting near the vault with Pike and an attorney named Rachel Kim.
Rachel looked like she had not slept but had somehow convinced her hair otherwise.
She shook Emily’s hand.
“I represent you, not Mr. Carter.”
Emily glanced at Matthew.
“He hired you.”
“He called me.”
“That isn’t the same thing?”
Rachel smiled faintly.
“No.”
Emily liked her immediately and resented it.
The bank manager spent twenty minutes insisting that the box could not be accessed without the registered owner.
Then he looked up the number.
His face changed.
“What?” Emily asked.
He removed his glasses.
“The owner is listed as Margaret Elise Ward.”
Pike looked at Emily.
Her mother’s maiden name had been Ward.
Emily said, “Margaret Ward.”
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
The manager hesitated.
“I can’t disclose account information.”
Rachel slid a court filing across the desk.
“You can disclose whether the named owner has signed anything recently if my client is listed as successor beneficiary.”
The manager read it.
Then he looked at Emily again.
“She has.”
Emily’s mouth went dry.
“When?”
The manager checked his screen.
“Three weeks ago.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Matthew took one step toward her.
Emily raised a hand.
He stopped.
“Three weeks ago?” she repeated.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I cannot—”
Rachel leaned forward.
“She is not asking for the address.”
The manager swallowed.
“The signature was witnessed at our North Harbor branch.”
Pike cursed softly.
Emily looked at him.
“What?”
“North Harbor is where your mother’s car was found after the crash.”
Emily’s heartbeat became loud in her ears.
“My mother died in a crash outside Hartford.”
Pike shook his head.
“No.”
He looked almost sick.
“Your mother’s car was found in North Harbor.”
Emily whispered, “With her body inside.”
Pike looked at the floor.
“No body was ever found.”
Emily stopped breathing.
The bank manager stared at all of them.
Then his desk phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face drained of color.
He placed the receiver down slowly.
“Ms. Hale.”
Emily could barely hear him.
“What?”
“The owner of the box is downstairs.”
Her knees nearly gave way.
May you like
The manager swallowed.
“She says she wants to see you alone.”
