Chapter 3 - THE SECRET BURIED INSIDE BLACKWOOD
I recorded everything.
My hands shook so violently that I almost dropped the hospital tablet, but I found the screen-recording function and watched my husband search our house with the woman he'd chosen over me.
Rebecca disappeared into my office.
David went straight to the built-in cabinet behind my desk.
He knew exactly where my father had told me to store the original Blackwood papers.
Except they weren't there.
I had moved them months earlier.
David didn't know that.
He yanked open drawers.
Rebecca returned holding a stack of folders.
"Nothing."
"It has to be here."
"David, we shouldn't be doing this."
He rounded on her.
"You wanted the deal as much as I did."
"I wanted the deal. I didn't want Simone dead."
My breath caught.
David lowered his voice.
"Keep your voice down."
"You said the dock would collapse after we were already off it."
"I said I had handled it."
"Handled what?"
David stared at her.
Rebecca took one step backward.
"You loosened it, didn't you?"
The video froze.
"No!"
I tapped the screen.
The security feed had gone black.
Someone had disabled the cameras.
I immediately called Detective Brooks.
She answered on the third ring.
"Brooks."
"They're inside my house."
"Who?"
"David and Rebecca. I recorded part of it."
Her voice sharpened.
"Are you at the hospital?"
"Yes."
"Stay there."
"They're looking for the Blackwood trust."
"Do not contact them."
"I heard Rebecca say he told her I wouldn't survive the lake."
A pause.
Then Detective Brooks said, "Send me the recording now."
I did.
Police reached my house twelve minutes later.
David and Rebecca were gone.
According to the responding officers, the rear door stood open. Desk drawers had been emptied. A small fireproof box had been pried apart.
Nothing obvious had been stolen.
Because the document David wanted had never been in the house.
It was sitting inside a safe-deposit box at First Commonwealth Bank.
My father had insisted on that.
"Paper survives longer when greedy men can't reach it," he used to say.
At the time, I thought he was talking about business rivals.
Now I wondered if he'd been warning me about someone closer.
By sunrise, my mother arrived.
Margaret Whitaker had never trusted David.
She had simply loved me enough not to say it every time.
The moment she entered the hospital room, she crossed to my bed and wrapped both arms around me.
For the first time since the lake, I let myself become somebody's daughter again.
I cried against her shoulder.
Not politely.
Not quietly.
I cried because my husband had cheated.
Because he had abandoned me.
Because someone may have sabotaged the dock.
Because I had nearly watched my daughter die before she was even born.
Mom stroked my damp hair.
"I'm here."
"I was so stupid."
"No."
"I defended him."
"You loved your husband."
"I ignored everything."
"That's not a crime."
I pulled back.
"What if he really tried to kill me?"
Mom's eyes changed.
"Then he chose the wrong woman to fail at killing."
That sounded like my mother.
By noon, Detective Brooks returned with news.
The county structural inspector had examined what remained of the dock.
Four anchor bolts should have connected the central support beam to the pilings.
Two were missing.
A third had been loosened.
The fourth had sheared under weight.
"This wasn't ordinary rot," Brooks said.
"Could the missing bolts have fallen into the water?"
"Dive team recovered one beneath the dock."
"And?"
"The threads were clean. Tool marks around the head."
My skin prickled.
"Someone removed it."
"We're waiting for laboratory confirmation."
Mom leaned forward.
"Arrest David."
Brooks stayed calm.
"Suspicion isn't enough."
"He broke into her house."
"His name is still on the residence."
"He forged a five-million-dollar insurance policy."
"We're investigating that separately."
"And Rebecca admitted on camera that he told her Simone wouldn't survive."
"Which is extremely important. But Rebecca's exact meaning matters."
I hated how reasonable she sounded.
I wanted handcuffs.
I wanted bars.
I wanted something solid between David and me.
Instead, I had evidence that looked horrifying while still leaving him room to lie.
That afternoon, Dr. Park ordered me to remain another night.
My daughter's heartbeat looked better, but I was experiencing intermittent contractions.
"Stress can trigger preterm labor," she warned.
I almost laughed.
Stress felt like a ridiculous word for discovering your husband might be planning your death.
Grant stopped by around four.
He brought a small stuffed fox.
"For the baby," he said awkwardly.
I smiled for the first time.
"She doesn't have a name yet."
"Then Fox can wait."
He placed it beside the fetal monitor.
My mother watched him with unmistakable interest.
I ignored her.
Grant had already saved my life. The last thing I needed was for anyone to turn him into some romantic replacement for David.
Right now, I didn't need a man.
I needed evidence.
Grant sat down.
"The dive team asked me to identify where I found your folder."
"The insurance papers?"
"Yeah."
"Why were they underneath the dock?"
"That's what I was wondering."
He rubbed his jaw.
"When I pulled you up, I saw a leather case drifting near a piling. After EMS took you, I went back because I thought it might contain identification."
"David usually keeps papers in his briefcase."
"Was he carrying one?"
I thought back.
When we'd walked down to the lake, David had been carrying a leather messenger bag.
Before stepping onto the dock, he'd placed it beside the railing.
The same place where the support beam failed.
"Yes."
Grant nodded.
"Then something else matters."
He reached into his jacket.
My mother tensed.
He pulled out a small metal key.
"This was caught in the torn lining."
I stared at it.
It wasn't a house key.
It was narrow, stamped with a number.
417.
"Safe-deposit?" Mom asked.
Grant shrugged.
"Could be."
I knew otherwise.
My father had used nearly identical keys for storage lockers at his old corporate archive.
Whitaker Development had sold its main offices years ago, but a private storage facility on Mason Street still held decades of company records.
Locker 417.
I remembered the number because it matched my parents' wedding anniversary.
April seventeenth.
"What did my father store there?" I whispered.
Mom went pale.
"Simone."
I turned.
"What?"
She looked at Grant, then Brooks.
"There is something I never told you."
Every instinct in my body sharpened.
Mom sat beside the bed.
"Six months before your father died, Hawthorne Development tried to buy Blackwood the first time."
"I know."
"No. You know about the official offer."
My mother took a breath.
"You don't know why your father rejected it."
My pulse rose.
"He hated the environmental impact."
"That was part of it."
"What was the rest?"
"He believed someone inside Hawthorne was falsifying land surveys and bribing county officials to make protected shoreline appear commercially developable."
I stared at her.
"Who?"
"He never proved it."
"Who did he suspect?"
Mom's eyes met mine.
"A senior acquisitions executive named Richard Shaw."
The name meant nothing for one second.
Then everything clicked.
Rebecca Shaw.
I whispered, "Her father?"
Mom nodded.
"Richard died three years ago. Your father kept investigating afterward because he believed millions of dollars had disappeared through shell companies connected to Blackwood."
Detective Brooks straightened.
"Would those records be inside locker 417?"
Mom looked at the key in Grant's hand.
"I think that's exactly where Charles put them."
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
This was no longer about adultery.
It might not even be primarily about the land.
There was something hidden inside my father's old files.
Something David needed badly enough to enter my house while I was still lying in a hospital bed.
Brooks took the key.
"Nobody goes to that locker until we obtain access properly."
Grant nodded.
I looked at my mother.
"Did David know about it?"
"I never told him."
Neither had I.
Yet the key had been inside David's leather folder.
Meaning he knew.
That evening, David called the hospital eleven times.
I refused every call.
At 8:42, a voicemail appeared.
His voice sounded gentle.
"Simone, I know you're scared. I know people are telling you things. Please don't do anything you'll regret. We can fix this. Everything I did was for us."
I deleted it.
Then a second message arrived.
This one was text.
YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOUR FATHER LEFT BEHIND.
A third came seconds later.
IF BROOKS OPENS LOCKER 417, PEOPLE WILL GET HURT.
I showed Mom.
She looked terrified.
I called Brooks.
No answer.
I called again.
Still nothing.
Then Grant's phone rang.
He listened for three seconds.
His face drained of color.
"What happened?" I demanded.
He looked at me.
"There's a fire."
"Where?"
"Mason Street Storage."
My heart stopped.
"Locker 417?"
Grant grabbed his coat.
"The whole east wing is burning."
And somewhere inside that building was whatever my father had hidden from Hawthorne Development.
But as Grant ran toward the door, my temporary tablet lit with one final message from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph.
Detective Brooks was standing beside her unmarked car in a dark parking lot.
The picture had been taken from less than twenty feet away.
May you like
Below it were six words.
STOP DIGGING OR SHE'S NEXT.
