Chapter 4 - The House With Two KeysBlair took Corinne to the small guest apartment above the garage of her friend Major Dana Pierce. Dana offered tea and an armed guard; Blair accepted the tea and declined the guard.

Dana had served with Blair in a difficult overseas posting. She knew the tiny signs Blair was nearing her limit: how she aligned her phone with the table edge, how she rechecked a locked door, how her voice grew quieter rather than louder. 'You can cry in my kitchen,' Dana said. Blair shook her head. Ten minutes later, she stepped into the laundry room and cried anyway, silently, with one hand pressed to the wall. When she returned, Corinne was awake and watching her. 'You don't have to be made of steel for me,' her mother said. Blair sat beside her without answering.

"Official channels," Blair told her. "If someone has threatened Mom, Ortiz needs it."

Dana frowned. "You're thinking like an officer. Try thinking like a daughter for five minutes."

"I'm trying not to lose either job."

Corinne slept behind a closed bedroom door while Blair laid out three photographs: the empty cabinet, the fireplace tools, and a portrait of her father, Arthur Ashford.

He had run Ashford Infrastructure, a midsize contractor that once supplied municipal transportation projects. He had died in a single-car crash on a wet road outside Richmond. The police had called it an accident.

Blair remembered the funeral. Nolan, then her boyfriend, had arrived carrying flowers and made himself useful. He had stayed useful until everyone trusted him.

Dana touched the photograph. "What was in the watch box?"

"Dad's old Hamilton. That's what Mom thinks."

A knock interrupted them. Detective Ortiz stood outside with a sealed paper bag.

"Your husband's lawyer says his client was trying to stop a break-in," she said. "We've located evidence that someone entered through the kitchen door before the fight."

Blair froze. "A third person?"

"Possibly. The lock has fresh scratches."

Corinne appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a cardigan. "There were two men," she said. "Nolan and someone who never came into the light."

Ortiz waited.

"I heard the second one in the kitchen. He had a cough. A horrible dry cough."

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From outside the apartment came the unmistakable sound of that cough.