Chapter 13 - The Floorboard That Bleed Ink
Midnight settled over Blackwood Manor like a suffocating shroud. Outside, the willows whipped against the stone facades, their wet branches shrieking like fingernails against glass. Inside the dark nursery, a single flashlight beam cut through the gloom.
Ethan was not asleep. He sat in the middle of his room, his knees pulled to his chest, staring at the floorboards beneath his toy chest. He was wearing his woolen sweater, the one his mother had knitted him the winter before she faded away.
The door creaked open. Daniel stepped inside, his coat dripping with rainwater, his face gaunt. Behind him walked Detective Miller, his service weapon holstered but his coat unbuttoned, his hand resting instinctively near his hip.
"Ethan?" Daniel called gently, sinking to one knee. "Buddy, why are you out of bed?"
Ethan didn't blink. His small finger pointed toward the corner of the room, right beneath the antique oak toy box carved with scenes from *The Chronicles of Narnia*.
"She used to come in here while you were sleeping at the office, Daddy," Ethan whispered, his child’s voice eerie in the echoing room. "Evelyn didn't look at my toys. She used to count the floor planks. One, two, three, four... from the edge of the fireplace."
Daniel exchanged a razor-sharp look with Miller. The detective stepped forward, gesturing for the boy to step back toward his father. With careful, measured movements, Miller took a crowbar from his duffel bag and slid the beveled tip beneath the fourth oak plank.
The aged timber resisted, groaning as the iron nails tore free from the subfloor. A cloud of ancient dust and the dry stench of old cedar drifted into the air.
Underneath lay a hollow cavity, nestled between two support joists. Inside was a steel fireproof dispatch box, wrapped tightly in a yellowed linen tablecloth. But it wasn't the box that made Daniel's heart stop.
Resting on top of the box was a photograph.
It was an old Polaroid, edges faded to a sepia yellow. In the picture stood three people on the deck of a yacht in the Hamptons. On the left was Sarah, radiant, laughing into the wind, twenty-four years old. In the center was Evelyn, looking remarkably ordinary before the high-end cosmetic surgeries and designer silk dresses.
And with his arm wrapped tightly around Evelyn’s waist, smiling with a predatory, cold smirk, was a man Daniel knew intimately.
It was Arthur Sterling—Daniel’s trusted legal counsel, the family attorney who had drafted Sarah’s will, Evelyn’s prenuptial agreement, and the legal guardianship documents for young Ethan.
"Arthur..." Daniel breathed, his stomach heaving as the entire mosaic of betrayal assembled itself in his mind. "Arthur brought Evelyn into our home. He recommended her as the foundation's event coordinator after Sarah got sick."
"Look at the back of the photo," Miller instructed grimly.
May you like
Daniel flipped the Polaroid with shaking fingers. Written in faded blue ink, in Arthur Sterling’s unmistakable, ornate cursive, were six words that chilled Daniel to the core:
*The heir will pay our debts.*
