Chapter 4 - The Photograph in the Drawer.
Saturday morning began with coffee neither Ethan nor Claire finished.
They returned to the house after Ethan called a locksmith and had the exterior locks changed.
The birthday decorations were still hanging in the kitchen.
The sight of the untouched cake made the previous night feel unreal.
Claire carried Owen upstairs while Ethan photographed every page in Martin's folder.
He wanted a record before anyone could claim the papers had been changed.
Then he called Rebecca Stone, an attorney he had known since college.
Rebecca did not offer dramatic promises.
She asked practical questions.
Who owned the property.
Who held the mortgage.
Which accounts were joint.
Whether Claire knew what she signed.
Whether Vivian had access to passwords, statements, or identification documents.
Ethan answered until one question stopped him.
"Does your mother receive mail at your address?"
"No."
Claire appeared in the doorway.
"Sometimes she does."
Ethan turned.
Claire explained that Vivian had claimed two bank statements and one investment notice had accidentally been sent to their house because an old family account still used Ethan's address.
Vivian had asked Claire to put them aside unopened.
"Where are they?"
Claire pointed toward a desk drawer in the breakfast nook.
The envelopes were gone.
In their place was a small photograph Ethan had never seen.
It showed Claire outside a coffee shop holding Owen's car seat while talking to a man in a navy jacket.
Claire stared at it.
"That's Dr. Patel."
Owen's pediatrician.
The picture had been taken from across the street.
A date was written on the back.
It matched the afternoon Claire had taken Owen to an unscheduled appointment for a rash.
Under the date were three words.
UNRELIABLE WITHOUT ETHAN.
Ethan felt his chest tighten.
"Who took this?"
Claire shook her head.
Rebecca remained on speakerphone.
"Don't assume anything yet."
Ethan hated how reasonable that sounded.
He wanted an answer immediately.
Instead, he searched the rest of the drawer.
Under a stack of takeout menus, he found a folded receipt from a private document service downtown.
The customer name was Vivian Mercer.
The service description read: certified copies, signature verification, family records packet.
Claire sat down slowly.
"She was building something."
Rebecca asked Ethan to read every line.
At the bottom of the receipt was a storage reference number.
Martin recognized it when Ethan texted him a photograph.
He called within five minutes.
"That's not a storage number."
"Then what is it?"
"It's an archive code from Mercer Development."
Mercer Development had been Ethan's late father's construction company.
The company had closed six years earlier.
Ethan had assumed its records were destroyed after the final tax filings.
Martin told him they were not.
Some boxes had been moved to a secure records facility outside the city.
"Who can access them?"
Martin's answer came carefully.
"Two people were listed after your father died."
Ethan already knew one name.
"My mother."
"Yes."
"Who's the other?"
Martin hesitated.
"You."
Ethan stared at the archive code.
He had never been told the records still existed.
May you like
And suddenly Monday was no longer the only deadline.
Someone had already been searching the past.
