Chapter 3 - NATALIE’S CODE
Natalie Mercer was standing barefoot in the doorway of her bedroom when Emma arrived.
Her hair was pulled into a loose knot. Her face still carried the exhaustion of a woman who had spent six months learning how to sleep on only half a bed.
“Emma?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“Your brother is home.”
Natalie blinked.
“What?”
“Inside. Quietly. Brooke doesn’t know.”
A small shape moved behind Natalie.
Noah.
He wore dinosaur pajamas and held a wooden sailboat against his chest.
“Uncle Dom came?”
Emma crouched slightly. “He did.”
Noah’s eyes filled with relief so fast it hurt to watch.
Natalie pulled him close. “Why is he hiding?”
“Because he heard enough this morning to know he was right to come back.”
Natalie’s face changed.
Emma showed her the photograph she had taken of the forged authorization before Brooke removed it.
Natalie stared at Dominic’s fake signature.
“I’ve never seen this.”
“Brooke says it gives her authority over the trust.”
“It can’t.” Natalie’s voice trembled. “Mom made the trust separate. She was obsessed with keeping the cottage protected.”
Noah looked up. “Grandma said the blue box was more important than the house.”
Both women turned to him.
“What blue box?” Natalie asked.
Noah hugged the sailboat tighter.
“The one under the floor.”
Natalie went still.
“Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”
“At Grandma’s cottage.”
Emma felt a chill crawl up her arms.
Noah spoke like he was describing a secret fort.
“Before Grandma got sick, she showed me a little brass key. She said if grown-ups started fighting about papers, I should make sure Mom got the blue box.”
Natalie’s mouth opened.
“She told you that?”
Noah nodded.
“Where’s the key?”
He looked down at the wooden sailboat.
Natalie stared.
Noah turned it over and pressed a tiny panel on the bottom.
A brass key dropped into his palm.
Emma exhaled. “Oh my God.”
Natalie sat on the edge of the bed.
“My mother knew.”
A soft knock sounded.
Three taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
Natalie’s eyes widened.
That was Dominic’s childhood signal.
She opened the door.
Dominic stepped inside and locked it behind him.
Noah ran into him so hard Dominic had to brace himself against the wall.
“Hey,” Dominic said, his voice suddenly different. Softer. “Easy, buddy.”
“You came back.”
“I told you I would.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
Noah pulled back and frowned. “This is a bad surprise.”
For the first time that morning, Dominic almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Natalie crossed her arms. “What is happening?”
Dominic told her the minimum. The threat. The forged authorization. The missing trust money.
He did not tell her what Brooke had said about Catherine.
Not yet.
Natalie sank into a chair.
“Three point eight million dollars?”
“Possibly.”
“I didn’t take a cent.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to say that because I’m your sister.”
“I’m not.”
He knelt in front of her.
“I know because if you’d stolen three point eight million dollars, you would not be wearing my mother’s twenty-year-old robe and arguing with the grocery delivery app over a six-dollar service fee.”
Natalie laughed once through sudden tears.
Then she covered her mouth.
Dominic looked at Noah. “Tell me about the blue box.”
Noah did.
When he finished, Dominic’s expression had changed again.
“Mom never mentioned it to me.”
Natalie wiped her eyes. “Maybe because she didn’t trust the people around you.”
The sentence hung between them.
Dominic accepted it without flinching.
“Maybe she was right.”
His phone buzzed.
Luca again.
Dominic read the message, then looked at Natalie.
“Your access code was used at 2:13 this morning to open the private aviation schedule.”
“I was asleep.”
“Who knows your code?”
“No one.”
“Think.”
Natalie’s eyes moved toward Noah.
Noah’s face went pale.
“Aunt Brooke.”
Natalie turned. “What?”
Noah swallowed.
“She asked me last week what your tablet number was. She said she wanted to order you a birthday surprise.”
Dominic stood.
Natalie’s birthday was four months away.
“Where’s your tablet?” he asked.
Natalie crossed to the dresser.
It was gone.
Then a floorboard creaked in the hall.
Someone was standing outside the locked bedroom door.
And the handle slowly began to turn.
—
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