Chapter 3 - The Locked Nightstand.
Daniel read the document twice before his hands began to shake.
It was labeled as an amendment to a family property agreement, but the language was dense enough to hide its real effect from anyone reading quickly.
One paragraph would have transferred temporary control of the Whitmore estate's voting shares to Daniel upon his marriage.
Another would have allowed Daniel's legal spouse to act on his behalf under circumstances so broadly defined that even Grant Lowell would have rejected them immediately.
Claire reached for the pages.
"Where did you get that?"
Daniel pulled them away.
"It was outside my mother's room."
"Then it isn't mine."
Naomi watched her closely.
Claire was no longer crying.
She was calculating.
"Who prepared this?"
Daniel asked.
Claire shook her head.
"I have no idea."
The answer sounded clean, but Daniel had known Claire long enough to recognize the way she pressed her thumbnail against her index finger when she was hiding something.
He had once thought the habit was charming.
Now it made his stomach turn.
Naomi suggested calling Grant immediately.
Claire objected again.
"At this hour?"
Daniel looked at the clock.
It was barely nine-thirty.
"Yes."
Grant answered on the second ring.
Daniel read the first page aloud.
The attorney's response was immediate.
"Do not let anyone sign anything."
Daniel's eyes moved to Claire.
Grant continued.
"That language did not come from my office."
"Could it be an old draft?"
"No."
Grant's tone became sharper.
"Daniel, listen carefully."
"I'm listening."
"Your mother rejected an amendment with similar language six weeks ago."
Daniel felt the room tilt beneath him.
"Who proposed it?"
There was a pause.
"Your cousin Adrian."
Claire turned away.
Naomi noticed.
Adrian Whitmore was Daniel's cousin and the chief financial officer of Whitmore Properties.
He was charming in public, impatient in private, and had spent years complaining that Evelyn kept too much control over the family company.
Daniel had never considered him dangerous.
He had considered him annoying.
Grant said he would arrive within the hour.
Claire folded her arms.
"This has nothing to do with me."
Daniel did not answer.
He went back into his mother's bedroom and found Evelyn awake.
Naomi followed, but Claire remained in the hallway after Daniel told her to wait.
Evelyn looked at the copied document and closed her eyes.
"That's what she brought me."
Daniel sat beside the bed.
"Mom, are you sure?"
Evelyn opened her eyes again.
"I may be old, Daniel, but I know when someone asks for my name at the bottom of a page."
His face tightened with guilt.
"Claire says you got confused."
Evelyn gave a humorless little laugh.
"Claire has been telling you that for months."
Daniel looked at Naomi.
Naomi did not need to confirm it.
The truth was written plainly across his mother's face.
Evelyn pointed toward the walnut nightstand beside the bed.
"My notebook."
Naomi opened the top drawer.
It was empty.
Evelyn frowned.
"Second drawer."
Naomi pulled it open.
There were reading glasses, a folded handkerchief, and a small silver key.
No notebook.
"It was there this afternoon."
Daniel stood.
"What was in it?"
Evelyn hesitated.
"Dates."
"What dates?"
"Every time something strange happened."
Naomi understood immediately.
The missing invitation to Grant's annual review meeting.
The medication delivery that arrived two days late even though the pharmacy had proof of receipt.
The altered seating chart that placed Evelyn away from Daniel at the engagement dinner.
The security code that somehow changed without her approval.
Evelyn had been keeping a record.
Now the record was gone.
Daniel searched the drawers again as if the notebook might appear through force of frustration.
Naomi checked beneath the bed and behind the curtains.
Nothing.
Then she noticed the nightstand's small lower cabinet.
It had a brass lock.
Evelyn pointed to the silver key Naomi had found.
"Open it."
Naomi inserted the key.
The cabinet door clicked.
Inside were three sealed envelopes, a flash drive, and a photograph of Claire standing beside Adrian at a restaurant Daniel did not recognize.
The photograph had been taken six months earlier.
Claire and Adrian were not simply standing near each other.
They were seated alone at a back table, leaning close over a folder.
Daniel stared at the image.
"She told me she had never met Adrian before our engagement dinner."
Naomi picked up the flash drive.
A small label was stuck to it in Evelyn's handwriting.
HALL CAMERA - JULY.
Daniel's face changed.
The hallway security camera outside Evelyn's room had supposedly stopped working in July.
Naomi looked toward the bedroom door.
Claire was no longer standing outside.
Daniel opened it.
The hallway was empty.
He ran toward the stairs.
Naomi followed and heard the front door close somewhere below.
By the time Daniel reached the foyer, Claire was gone.
So was the cream envelope containing the copied transfer document.
But what frightened Naomi more was what Daniel discovered when he returned upstairs.
The flash drive was still in her hand.
The notebook was still missing.
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And Evelyn's silver key no longer fit the lock on the nightstand.
Someone had changed the lock before they ever opened it.
