Chapter 3 - The Sealed Ledger
Mark spun around, his hands curled into defensive fists. Standing in the doorway was Julian, the estate’s longtime groundskeeper, holding an unlit lantern. Julian’s weathered face showed no emotion, but his eyes darted nervously down the dim hallway before he stepped inside and quietly pulled the door shut behind him.
""You should not be rummaging here, Master Mark,"" Julian whispered, his voice raspy from decades of pipe smoke. ""There are eyes in the wainscoting tonight.""
Mark took a step forward, pulling the soot-stained envelope halfway out of his coat. ""Julian, Elena didn't die of heart failure. She was terrified yesterday. Who was in this room before me?""
Julian swallowed hard, glancing toward the drawn heavy velvet curtains. He reached into his coat and produced a small, leather-bound brass notebook. Its cover was scratched, bearing the crest of the local maritime trust.
""Miss Elena brought this to the greenhouse two nights ago,"" the old man murmured, pressing it into Mark’s hands. ""She told me if she didn't meet me by dawn today, I was to burn it. I couldn't do it. Not after what happened to your father ten years ago.""
May you like
Mark opened the ledger. The pages were filled with Elena’s meticulous shorthand, charting vast sums transferred out of the family trust into an offshore shell entity registered under the initials C.V. At the bottom of the final page was a date stamped for that very evening, with a single handwritten annotation: The lawyer signs at midnight.
A grandfather clock downstairs chimed eleven times.
