Chapter 2 - A Voice Beneath the Floor
Cole kept the flashlight pointed at Hank’s face. “You signed the receipt. That means you’re involved now.”
“I’ve been involved since the day my daughter died.”
“Rachel was my wife.”
“Then you should know she hated being cornered.”
Cole took one step closer. Behind Hank, Sophie made a small frightened sound.
“Go inside,” Hank told her.
“But—”
“Now.”
Sophie obeyed, though she looked back twice before disappearing through the side door.
Cole lowered the flashlight. “You’re making accusations without evidence.”
“I haven’t made any accusations.”
“You’re sleeping in my garage, eating my food, and snooping around my property.”
“Your property?” Hank asked.
The silence between them changed shape.
Cole’s jaw worked. “Rachel left this house to me.”
“Rachel left a lot of things. You should be careful about assuming which ones.”
Cole swung the flashlight toward the pickup. “What did you bring with you?”
“Clothes.”
“Open the truck.”
“Get a warrant.”
Cole stepped close enough for Hank to smell whiskey on his breath. “You think the law is going to save you? You’re an old man with no money and no home.”
“That’s what I wanted you to think.”
The words escaped before Hank could stop them.
Cole’s eyes sharpened.
Hank smiled faintly. “Wanted you to think I was too tired to argue.”
For several seconds, neither moved. Then Vanessa called from the house, “Cole, come inside.”
Cole backed away. “This isn’t over.”
“It was never what you thought it was.”
When Cole left, Hank locked the garage door and found Sophie waiting behind a stack of storage bins.
“Did he hurt you?” Hank asked.
She shook her head. “Not tonight.”
“That wasn’t the answer I asked for.”
Sophie looked at the floor. “He gets mad when I ask about Mom.”
Hank sat beside her. “What does he say?”
“That she chose to leave us.”
“Your mother didn’t choose to leave you.”
“How do you know?”
Hank reached for her hand. “Because she called me the night before she died.”
He had not told Sophie that before. He had kept the call buried beneath eight months of grief and suspicion.
“What did she say?”
“She said she loved you. She said she was coming to get you.”
Sophie’s mouth trembled. “She promised that.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t she?”
Hank had no answer that would not break them both.
At dawn, he drove to town and parked outside Bell & Ortiz Investigations, a narrow brick office above a bakery. Mara Bell was Rachel’s former law partner, though she had left the firm after a disagreement with the managing partner.
She opened the door before he knocked.
“You took your time,” Mara said.
Hank looked at her. “You knew I was coming?”
“Rachel told me if she stopped answering her phone, you would pretend to be broke and let Cole underestimate you.”
“She planned all this?”
“She planned for the possibility that she might not survive.”
Mara led him upstairs. On her desk sat a cardboard box marked MERCER, RACHEL — PRIVATE.
“I found this in the old office after the partners locked me out,” she said. “I held it because I didn’t know whom to trust.”
Hank opened the box. Inside were copies of loan statements, photographs of Red Mesa trucks, and a flash drive taped beneath the lid.
“Why didn’t you take this to the police?”
“Because the documents suggest fraud, not murder. And the one person who could explain the missing money was Rachel.”
“Rachel is dead.”
“That is why we need facts before theories.”
Mara inserted the flash drive into her laptop. A video appeared. Rachel sat at her kitchen table, wearing the blue cardigan she had worn during her last visit to Hank’s farm.
“Dad,” she said on the screen, “if this is playing, Cole has probably told everyone the farm is gone. It isn’t. You transferred it into the Mercer Family Land Trust years ago. I am the trustee, but the trust names you as successor.”
Hank closed his eyes.
He had created the trust to protect the land from debt, but Rachel had never told Cole about it.
Rachel continued. “Red Mesa wants the water rights. Cole borrowed against the house and used my signature on documents I never approved. Vanessa knows more than she says. I don’t know whether she is helping him or trying to survive him.”
The video ended with Rachel leaning closer to the camera.
“The key is beneath the floor where we used to hide from thunderstorms. The words are in Sophie’s song. Dad, don’t come for revenge. Come for your granddaughter.”
Mara paused the screen.
“Where did you and Rachel hide from thunderstorms?”
“The old farmhouse,” Hank said. “There was a crawl space under the pantry.”
“The farmhouse on the land Cole thinks is lost?”
“The same one.”
His phone rang. It was Sophie’s school.
The secretary sounded apologetic. “Mr. Mercer, Cole called to withdraw Sophie. He said she’s being transferred to a private program.”
“Did he give an address?”
“No. He said she would not be returning.”
Hank stood so fast the chair struck the wall.
Mara grabbed her keys. “We’re going back.”
“The school won’t release her to me.”
“Not yet.”
May you like
“Then what do we do?”
Mara looked at the paused image of Rachel. “We find the key before Cole finds whatever it opens.”
