Chapter 2: The Envelope
The sheriff arrived twenty minutes later with two cruisers and a crime scene van.
By then, Savannah had stopped speaking.
She sat beneath the white terrace awning, hands folded in her lap, her diamond ring catching the sunlight as if nothing had happened.
Eli sat near the fountain while a housekeeper cleaned the blood from his face.
Malcolm stood apart from everyone, watching the investigators remove the device from the helicopter piece by piece.
The sheriff, a broad-shouldered man named Carter Doyle, approached him with a sealed plastic evidence bag.
Inside was the white envelope.
“Found in the mechanic’s truck,” Carter said. “Ten thousand dollars cash. No fingerprints yet except his.”
Malcolm looked at the envelope.
Then at Savannah.
“She’s too careful for that.”
Carter narrowed his eyes. “You think there’s more?”
“I know there is.”
That evening, Malcolm ordered his private office unlocked.
Savannah protested immediately.
“You can’t go through my things.”
Malcolm looked at her.
“My helicopter was wired to explode.”
She said nothing after that.
Inside the office safe, investigators found burner phones, bank transfer receipts, and a draft of Malcolm’s revised will.
But the worst discovery was not money.
It was a folder labeled: Eli Mercer.
Eli stood in the doorway when Malcolm opened it.
Inside were photographs of him working in the stables. Copies of his employment record. His mother’s old medical bills. His address. His background.
Malcolm slowly lifted one page.
Savannah had been watching Eli for months.
Eli’s stomach turned.
“Why would she have a file on me?” he asked.
Malcolm did not answer at first.
Then he found a final photograph.
It showed Eli as a baby, wrapped in a blue blanket, held by a young woman with tired eyes.
On the back, written in fading ink, were three words:
Malcolm’s son. Hidden.
The room went silent.
Eli looked at Malcolm.
Malcolm looked at the photograph.
May you like
And Savannah smiled faintly for the first time all day.
“There it is,” she whispered.
