Chapter 4 - The Locked House

I didn't go to Alder Street alone. I took Detective Park and a city code-enforcement officer with a court-authorized entry order obtained after Elena's statement. The old house sat at the far end of a dead-end road, its porch swallowed by weeds. Alma had told me it was empty, condemned, and dangerous.

Park studied the brass key from the envelope. “Let's see what it belongs to.”

It opened a side door without resistance.

Inside, the air smelled of cedar polish, not rot. Someone had swept the floors. A fresh carton of milk sat in the refrigerator. On the dining table were stacks of invoices, a box of property tax records, and a calendar with next Friday circled in red.

“Not exactly abandoned,” I said.

Park photographed everything before touching it. A narrow room at the back had been converted into an office. A desktop computer sat on a metal cabinet, its monitor dark. Above it hung a photograph of Alder House before the fire: twenty-seven residents smiling on a front lawn. My father stood at one end in his favorite brown jacket. Beside him was a nurse I didn't recognize.

Park pointed at the photograph. “Ruth Weller?”

I shook my head. “I only knew Ruth as Dad's old bookkeeper.”

On a shelf I found a little wooden bird my father had carved when I was a kid. Its wing had a chipped tip. I hadn't seen it since his funeral. Seeing it here, in a room he supposedly never used, made the lie feel physical.

My phone buzzed with a hospital notification. Elena's condition was stable. I breathed again.

Then Park called me to the kitchen. Someone had left two mugs in the sink. One still held a ring of fresh coffee.

A car engine sounded outside.

Park turned off the lights and motioned me away from the window. A gray pickup rolled slowly past the house, stopped, then backed toward the driveway. I knew the driver: Kyle Mercer, the county facilities manager who handled the old Alder House settlement paperwork.

He saw the marked police vehicle, slammed the truck into gear, and sped away.

Park was already on the radio. I looked down at the desktop calendar and saw what had been circled for Friday.

TRANSFER OF REMAINING RESIDENT FUNDS.

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Below it, in a different hand, someone had written:

After Friday, nobody can put the money back.