Chapter 5 - The Missing Page.
Thomas Harper’s study was at the end of the west hallway, behind a dark oak door no one had opened since the funeral.
Vivian had always called it sacred space.
She said leaving the room untouched helped her feel close to her husband.
Claire had respected that boundary.
Now it looked less like grief and more like storage.
Ethan stood in front of the locked door with Hannah beside him.
Vivian remained downstairs.
She had announced that any attempt to enter the study would be an unforgivable betrayal.
Claire found the irony exhausting.
Hannah tried the brass handle.
Locked.
Ethan looked at Claire.
“You think the missing pages are in there?”
“I think we stop assuming anything.”
They called Martin Hale before doing anything else.
He confirmed that Ethan, as executor of his late father’s remaining personal records, had the right to access the room.
More importantly, he told them not to remove or destroy anything.
Hannah searched the upstairs linen cabinet where old household keys were kept.
None fit.
Ethan checked his father’s antique desk in the downstairs library.
Nothing.
Claire returned to the bedroom and stared at the mirrored nightstand where she had hidden the green folder.
The drawer had been slightly open when she woke the morning before.
She remembered closing it the night before.
A thought struck her.
She pulled the drawer completely free.
Taped beneath it was a small brass key.
Claire stared at it.
She had never placed it there.
Ethan came in behind her.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
The key had a tiny paper tag wrapped around the ring.
On it, in faded handwriting, were two letters.
TS.
Thomas’s study.
They brought Hannah upstairs.
The key turned on the first try.
The study smelled faintly of old leather and cedar.
Dust covered the desk, but not evenly.
Someone had recently moved objects on the left side.
Claire pointed to a clean rectangle beneath a stack of books.
“Something was here.”
Ethan opened the desk drawers.
The first contained pens, receipts, and a broken watch.
The second was empty.
The third held a stack of corporate stationery and several old signature cards.
Ethan picked one up.
His signature appeared six times in blue ink.
Practice samples.
His face tightened.
“I made these for Dad’s finance department when I joined the company.”
Hannah opened a cabinet behind the desk.
Inside were labeled binders for trusts, insurance policies, property records, and corporate filings.
One binder was missing from the sequence.
2019.
2020.
2022.
No 2021.
Claire searched the lower shelf.
Behind a tax archive box, she found a torn sheet of cream paper.
The top half was gone.
At the bottom were three typed lines.
PROPERTY TWO: LAKE RESIDENCE, VERMONT.
PROPERTY THREE: COMMERCIAL UNIT, BOSTON.
AUTHORIZED FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE: VIVIAN M. HARPER.
Hannah read it over Claire’s shoulder.
“What commercial unit?”
Ethan answered slowly.
“Dad’s old showroom.”
Hannah frowned.
“I thought that was sold.”
“So did I.”
Claire examined the edge of the page.
It matched the torn sheet from the green folder almost perfectly.
But if this was the bottom half, then a third property had been added to the bank package.
Ethan went to the filing cabinet.
The drawer marked REAL ESTATE was locked.
The brass key did not fit.
Hannah crouched beside it.
“There’s a digital keypad.”
Four numbers were required.
Ethan tried his father’s birthday.
Wrong.
He tried the company founding year.
Wrong.
Claire looked around the room.
On the desk was a framed photo of Thomas, Vivian, Ethan, and Hannah standing outside the Boston showroom.
A small plaque beneath the image read OPENED OCTOBER 14.
Claire entered 1014.
The lock clicked.
Inside was the missing 2021 binder.
May you like
And on top of it sat a sealed envelope addressed in Thomas Harper’s handwriting.
TO ETHAN AND HANNAH - OPEN IF YOUR MOTHER EVER USES THE COMPANY TO PRESSURE YOU.
