Chapter 3 - The File That Should Not Exist
Daniel immediately called mansion security.
“Lock the exterior gates.”
Emily looked toward him.
“Vanessa already left.”
“I’m not locking her in.”
Daniel held up the phone.
“I’m stopping whoever took this photograph from getting inside.”
Security chief Owen Blake arrived minutes later.
He had worked for the Mercer family for eleven years.
He studied the message.
Then his expression tightened.
“I’ll trace the number.”
Daniel handed him the phone.
“No one deletes anything.”
Owen nodded.
“Of course.”
Emily watched him walk away.
Something about his reaction bothered her.
He had looked at the photograph before Daniel enlarged it.
For just a second, Owen had appeared to recognize it.
Daniel noticed Emily staring.
“What?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Margaret was still holding the necklace.
Emily finally asked the question she had avoided since arriving at the mansion.
“Did my mother ever admit stealing it?”
“No.”
“Did she ever change her story?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t anyone believe her?”
Margaret’s voice became quiet.
“Because Charles found the necklace himself.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
“In Anna’s suitcase.”
Emily’s stomach dropped.
Another planted item.
Another container opened in front of witnesses.
Another supposedly undeniable discovery.
It was too similar to be coincidence.
Daniel led Emily and Margaret into his father’s old study.
The room had remained largely untouched since Robert Mercer’s death twelve years earlier.
Margaret unlocked a mahogany cabinet.
Inside were estate records dating back decades.
They searched until nearly midnight.
There was no file labeled Anna.
No disciplinary record.
No theft report.
Nothing.
Then Emily remembered the brass key from her mother’s box.
She removed it from the chain beneath her uniform.
Daniel looked at it.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
Anna’s final letter had contained only one clue.
Robert kept the truth where Margaret would never look.
Daniel stared across the study.
Then he looked at his father’s massive antique desk.
“My mother hated that desk.”
Margaret gave him a sharp look.
“Because it was hideous.”
Daniel crouched beside it.
Behind the lowest drawer was a tiny brass keyhole.
Emily’s key fit perfectly.
A hidden compartment released with a soft click.
Inside was a thin gray folder.
Emily stopped breathing when Daniel opened it.
The first page contained a photograph of Anna.
The second contained copies of bank transfers.
The third contained a handwritten note from Robert Mercer.
Daniel read it twice.
Then he looked at Emily as if seeing her for the first time.
Margaret stepped closer.
“What does it say?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
Emily took the paper from his hands.
Only one sentence had been written across the bottom.
Anna is telling the truth, and if Charles learns what I discovered, Emily will never be safe.
Emily’s fingers began to tremble.
She looked at Daniel.
“My mother knew your father?”
Daniel pointed toward the next document.
“No.”
His face had gone pale.
“She knew him very well.”
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At the top of the page was a confidential laboratory report.
And beside Emily’s mother’s name was Robert Mercer’s.
