Chapter 10 - The Blue Box

Nora copied the memory card and locked away the original. "This may be important, but we need its authenticity preserved."

For the first time since dinner, Caroline sat beside her brother without looking away.

"I knew Mom was controlling," she said. "I didn't know about that box."

"You knew about the floor."

"Yes." Her eyes filled. "And I was a coward."

Nathan didn't rescue her from the admission. He said, "You can change what you do next."

At the appointed time, Simon Price arrived with a canvas briefcase full of audited statements. He showed Nathan three years of ordinary transactions, then a cluster of unusual payments after Hannah's death. Money had moved from a temporary estate account into a company called Whitmore Administrative Services.

"Who owns it?" Nathan asked.

"Your mother, through another entity. I've been requesting the contracts for eight months."

"How much?"

Simon named a figure large enough to keep Harbor House operating for years.

Caroline let out a stunned breath. "Mom told us Hannah had nearly nothing left."

"That's not what the records indicate," Simon said. "But the paper trail isn't complete."

Nora contacted an attorney specializing in trusts and estates to review the documents independently. Nathan spent the next hour calling banks to verify the authority listed on each account. Then he took Lucy to a quiet playground, because she had spent two days surrounded by adult fear.

On the swings, she asked, "If Mom was trying to help people, why did Grandma get mad?"

"Sometimes people think money matters more than doing what's right."

"Do you think Mom knew Grandma would be mean to me?"

He looked at his daughter. "I think she wanted to make sure nobody could take your voice away."

Lucy dug her heels into the sand. "Then I should tell you one more thing. I copied the numbers Grandma said out loud to Mr. Vale."

She recited six digits from memory.

Nathan wrote them down. Nora tried them later as the combination to the small safe listed on the east study's inventory.

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They worked.

But the inventory also carried a notation: SAFE CONTENTS REMOVED BY E. WHITMORE—YESTERDAY.