Chapter 11 - Briar Glen

The mountain road curled through wet pine trees. Rosalind watched each passing headlight in the rearview mirror, certain one would turn and follow.

At a diner in Briar Glen, a waitress recognized Evelyn's photograph. “She called herself June,” the woman said. “Worked mornings. Always paid cash. Never talked about family.”

“Is she still here?” Rosalind asked.

The waitress hesitated. “She left two years ago. An older woman used to pick her up on Sundays. I can give you her address.”

The address led to a farmhouse with white shutters and a vegetable garden. An elderly woman named Mae greeted them with a shotgun she lowered only when Rosalind said her mother's name.

“Evelyn called you Rosebud,” Mae said.

Rosalind could not breathe. Nobody outside her family knew that nickname.

Mae made tea and opened a cedar chest. Inside were birthday cards Evelyn had written every year but never mailed. The first was for Rosalind's sixteenth birthday. The last was dated only a month earlier.

“She was alive last month?”

Mae nodded. “She came here in September. Said it was nearly over.”

“Where did she go?”

“She wouldn't say. She was scared someone would follow.”

Tobias found a folded map inside the chest, marked with the shipping terminal and a coastal property called North Point. Beside it Evelyn had written: The real ledger is below the tide line.

Rosalind turned the paper over. An old photograph was taped to the back: Penelope, younger, laughing beside a dark-haired man wearing a signet ring.

Mae looked at the picture and flinched. “That's Daniel Mercer.”

“Vance's brother?” Tobias asked.

Mae nodded. “Daniel married Penelope. He died at the quarry. Or that's what they told everyone.”

Rosalind felt the pieces shifting into a new shape. If Penelope carried Daniel's child, Vance had a blood heir. Someone who might inherit the trust if certain documents were changed.

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Then Mae's landline rang. She answered, listened, and handed the receiver to Rosalind.

A woman said, “Rosebud? It's Mom. Don't go to North Point.”