Chapter 4 - THE COTTAGE KEY
Dominic moved before Natalie could speak.
He pulled Noah behind him and gestured Emma toward the bathroom.
The handle turned again.
Locked.
A woman’s voice came through the door.
“Natalie?”
Brooke.
Dominic held one finger to his lips.
Natalie forced her voice steady. “What?”
“I asked Emma to wake you.”
“She did.”
“Then why aren’t you downstairs?”
“I’m getting dressed.”
A pause.
“You locked the door.”
“I have a nine-year-old.”
Brooke laughed softly. “I need five minutes with you.”
“You can have five minutes after seven.”
“Natalie.”
Something in Brooke’s tone made Noah grip Dominic’s coat.
Natalie heard it too.
“No,” she said.
Silence.
Then Brooke replied, “That’s going to be an expensive word for you.”
Her footsteps faded.
Dominic waited ten seconds.
Then he opened the hidden panel inside Natalie’s dressing room that connected to the east service stairs.
Natalie stared at him. “How many secret doors are in this house?”
“Enough to explain why Mom never trusted architects.”
They moved fast.
Emma stayed upstairs to make it appear Natalie was still dressing. Dominic led Natalie and Noah down the old stone stairs and out through the greenhouse passage.
Rain hammered the glass roof.
The cottage sat two hundred yards east of the mansion, behind a line of wind-bent cedar trees. Its windows were dark.
Noah held the brass key in one fist.
Dominic stopped them near the garden wall.
“Stay here.”
Natalie shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m checking the cottage.”
“It’s my trust.”
“It’s my mother’s cottage.”
“She was my mother too.”
Dominic looked at her.
Natalie lifted her chin.
“Don’t turn into Dad when you’re scared.”
That hit.
Their father had protected people by controlling them until there was nothing left to breathe.
Dominic nodded once. “You stay behind me.”
“Fine.”
“Noah stays outside with Luca.”
“Who’s Luca?” Noah asked.
A man stepped from behind the garden shed as if the rain had built him there.
Luca Bennett was broad-shouldered, gray at the temples, and looked permanently unimpressed.
“Me.”
Noah studied him. “Do you have a gun?”
Natalie closed her eyes. “Noah.”
Luca looked at Dominic.
Dominic said, “Not a conversation for now.”
Noah whispered, “That means yes.”
Dominic and Natalie reached the cottage.
The front door was closed.
The lock had fresh scratches around it.
Dominic touched the brass plate.
“Someone’s been here.”
Inside, the cottage smelled like cedar, old books, and Catherine’s lavender soap.
Natalie stopped in the foyer.
For a moment, grief erased everything else.
Her mother’s scarf still hung from a hook near the door.
“She always forgot that one,” Natalie whispered.
Dominic did not answer.
He was staring at the desk.
Every drawer had been opened.
The cabinet doors were ajar.
A framed photograph lay face-down on the floor.
Natalie picked it up.
It showed Catherine with both children on the seawall, years before grief and power had made every room feel complicated.
“Who did this?” she asked.
“We’re going to find out.”
Noah called from outside. “Mom?”
Natalie went to the door.
He held up the brass key.
“Grandma said under the sewing room.”
The sewing room was at the rear of the cottage.
Dominic moved a faded rug and found nothing.
Natalie crouched near the old sewing table.
“Wait.”
One floorboard had a tiny crescent carved into it.
Catherine’s favorite symbol.
Dominic pried the board up.
Underneath was a steel lockbox painted dark blue.
Natalie stared at it.
Noah’s key fit.
Click.
Dominic lifted the lid.
Inside were three things.
A leather ledger.
A sealed envelope with Natalie’s name.
And a small flash drive taped to a card that read:
IF THEY SAY I WAS CONFUSED, THEY ARE LYING.
Natalie stopped breathing.
Dominic reached for the ledger.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
He turned.
No one was there.
Then he saw movement in the mirror above the fireplace.
A man in a dark coat was standing outside the cottage window.
Watching them.
Dominic knew that face.
Adrian Cross.
—
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