Chapter 6 - The Boathouse Trap

I showed Daniel the message. His first reaction was anger. Mine was a terrible, familiar calm. People with money were still treating my family like pieces on a board. This time I would not move where they ordered.

Marcus helped us make copies of the message and forward them to the detective handling Noah's report. Daniel called a private investigator named Tessa Brooks, an ex-journalist who had once exposed a charity fraud. We agreed no one would go to the boathouse alone.

“I'm coming,” I told Daniel.

“You could be walking into a trap.”

“So could you. The difference is that whoever sent the message knows my name.”

At sunset, Tessa parked near the waterfront while two uniformed officers waited farther down the road. Daniel and I approached the old wooden building together. Rain ticked on the dock. The half key felt heavy against my throat.

Inside, somebody had left a lantern glowing beside a dusty metal cabinet. A folded note sat beneath an empty glass. DANIEL KNOWS HOW TO OPEN IT.

Daniel took his brass fragment from his wallet. I held mine beside it. The jagged edges matched perfectly, but the pieces didn't turn anything. Tessa, who'd joined us at the door, lifted the cabinet latch and pointed to a narrow slot beneath it.

“A two-part key for a sliding bolt,” she said. “Clever.”

We inserted the halves side by side. The latch released. Inside lay an old cassette recorder, an envelope addressed to Eleanor, and a photograph of two infants in hospital blankets. One tiny wristband read DANIEL MERCER. The other read BABY GIRL WHITMORE.

From the shadow behind the cabinet, a board creaked. Somebody bolted through the rear exit. Daniel chased the figure along the dock but stopped when Tessa shouted his name. The planks ahead had been sawed almost through. One wrong step would have sent him into the black water.

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Police searched the area and found only a discarded raincoat. Tessa opened the envelope with gloves. The first page was written by my mother.

I read its opening line aloud: “If anyone finds this, Richard Whitmore has built his fortune on a child who was never his.”