Chapter 4 - Forty-Two Missing Minutes.
Darkness swallowed the passage.
Adrian heard Nora gasp and Martin curse under his breath.
The flashlight struck the floor and rolled away, sending a spinning beam across the stone walls.
Adrian grabbed the metal case with one hand and reached for Nora with the other.
"Stay close."
A door slammed somewhere above them.
Then came the unmistakable sound of a lock turning.
Martin found the flashlight.
"Someone killed the power to this section."
Adrian pulled out his phone.
No signal.
The cellar had always been a dead zone.
"Who can access the electrical controls?"
Martin's pause was too long.
"Security."
Adrian looked at him through the dim beam.
"Meaning you."
"And two night officers."
"Names."
"Franklin and Boyd."
Nora moved toward the wall.
"There is another way out."
Martin looked at her sharply.
"How do you know that?"
"My mother drew me a map."
Adrian laughed once, bitterly.
"Apparently everyone knew my house better than I did."
Nora flinched.
"Your wife wanted it that way."
They followed the hidden passage until it ended behind a narrow service door near the wine room.
Nora pressed a loose brick, and the latch released.
When they emerged, the mansion alarms were screaming.
Adrian ran upstairs.
Lily was safe in the library with the nurse, but Celeste's guest suite was empty.
One of the security guards lay unconscious in the hall, breathing but bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
The second guard had vanished.
Adrian looked at Martin.
"Seal the estate."
Martin reached for his radio.
Adrian stopped him.
"Not you."
The insult landed hard.
"Sir?"
"Give me your badge, radio, and weapon."
Martin stared at him.
"You think I did this?"
"I think your photograph is inside a secret box my dead wife hid under my house."
Martin slowly surrendered the items.
Nora watched from the doorway.
Adrian carried the case to his office and opened the first folder.
It contained copies of Lily's trust documents.
Evelyn had created the trust months before her death.
Adrian had known about it.
What he had never seen were the amendments.
Millions of dollars had been moved through a charity bearing Celeste's name.
Several authorizations carried Adrian's signature.
The signatures were excellent forgeries.
Nora leaned over one page.
"This transfer was last month."
Adrian's stomach turned.
He opened the security system on his computer.
The cameras had recorded the entire evening except for one gap.
Forty-two minutes were missing from every camera near the cellar, west hall, and greenhouse.
The deletion required an administrator password.
Only Adrian and Martin had that access.
Adrian changed the password every thirty days.
The current one had never been written down.
He looked at Martin, who stood guarded by two different officers outside the office.
"How did they get it?"
Martin's face tightened.
"I don't know."
Nora suddenly pointed at the screen.
"Go back."
Adrian rewound to the final second before the missing footage.
Lily appeared at the end of the corridor, following a trail of red roses.
A figure stood around the corner, mostly hidden.
Only one hand was visible.
The person wore a heavy gold signet ring.
Adrian froze.
He knew that ring.
It did not belong to Celeste.
It belonged to his family's attorney, Gideon Crane.
Gideon had left the gala nearly an hour before Lily disappeared.
At least, that was what he had told Adrian.
Adrian enlarged the image.
The ring showed the Vale family crest.
Only three such rings had ever been made.
One was Adrian's.
May you like
One had been buried with his father.
And the third had vanished twenty years ago with Adrian's disowned older brother.
