Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE THAT WAS NEVER HERS
Silence filled the study.
Elena looked at Victoria, waiting for her to laugh.
Victoria did not.
Adrian moved between them.
“Stop this.”
Victoria ignored him.
“Our grandmother changed her will six months before she died.”
“The estate was supposed to return to the Hartley family.”
“Elena was never meant to keep it.”
Elena’s grandmother, Margaret Hartley, had raised Elena after her parents died.
Margaret had also been Adrian and Victoria’s paternal grandmother.
She had left the estate to Elena without explanation.
Victoria had challenged the will and lost.
Elena looked toward the empty space where the envelope had been.
“If you knew what the document said, why did you never mention it during the lawsuit?”
“Because I could not prove it existed.”
“Now it is missing while you control the house.”
Detective Mason turned to Victoria.
“How did you know about a sealed document inside a private vault?”
Victoria hesitated.
“Grandmother told me.”
“When?”
“A few weeks before she died.”
Mason wrote something in his notebook.
Elena noticed Adrian staring at the empty shelf.
He looked more frightened by the missing envelope than by the stolen jewelry.
“You knew about it too.”
Adrian’s eyes shifted toward her.
“No.”
“You cannot even look at me.”
“Elena, this is not the time.”
“It is exactly the time.”
Mason interrupted them.
“I need the security records for this room.”
Elena opened the security application on the study computer.
The vault camera had stopped recording at 2:13 that morning.
It resumed at 2:41.
Twenty-eight minutes were missing.
Only three people had administrator access.
Elena was one of them.
Adrian was the second.
The estate’s security manager, Noah Grant, was the third.
Mason asked where Noah was.
Elena called him.
The phone rang from behind the locked storage room across the hallway.
Adrian forced the door open.
Noah was lying on the floor.
Blood stained the side of his head.
His hands were tied behind his back.
A torn piece of black fabric had been pushed into his mouth.
Elena dropped beside him.
“Noah.”
His eyes opened weakly.
He struggled to speak.
Mason removed the fabric.
Noah coughed.
“Someone made me shut down the camera.”
“Who?”
Noah looked past Elena.
His gaze landed on Adrian.
Adrian took one step backward.
Noah lifted a trembling hand.
May you like
Then every light in the study went out.
A gunshot shattered the darkness.
