Chapter 8
By the time Adrian reached the entrance hall, the fire alarm had become a distant wail beyond the estate gates.
He stopped himself from following Detective Harlan. The detective had told him to stay, and charging into a fire scene would not help Claire. It would only give the investigators one more person to keep out of the way.
Rachel sat on the bench with Emma pressed against her side. The little girl held her rabbit by one worn ear.
“Is the fire at the garage?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Adrian said. “Harlan went to find out.”
Emma searched his face.
“Will the answers burn?”
For a moment, he couldn’t speak.
“I hope not,” he said at last. “But the firefighters are going to do everything they can.”
An officer led them to a sitting room away from the entrance. Rachel thanked him, then looked at Adrian as the door closed.
“She shouldn’t have to hear about this from strangers,” she said.
“She won’t.”
“I mean the questions. The videos. People were already asking her things at the party.”
Adrian’s phone vibrated before he could answer. A message from his communications director appeared beneath a flood of missed calls: someone had posted a clip of Emma warning him. The video had spread beyond the party guests. The caption called Emma a “tiny heiress’s ghost whisperer.” Another post had zoomed in on Rachel, labeling her a disgruntled employee.
Adrian felt heat rise behind his eyes—not at Rachel or Emma, but at the ease with which strangers had turned their fear into entertainment.
“I’ll have the estate staff stop anyone from approaching you,” he said. “No one gets to question Emma without you there.”
Rachel held his gaze.
“And no one gets to suggest she made this up because I work for you?”
“No one,” he said. “I won’t blame either of you to protect my name.”
Rachel’s shoulders lowered slightly, though the worry in her face remained.
“I don’t need you to make promises you can’t keep.”
“I can keep that one.”
He turned off his phone. It kept vibrating on the table.
At the garage, firefighters had contained the flames to a small office. Harlan sent the update by text, then warned Adrian not to treat “contained” as “safe.” Investigators were waiting for fire personnel to clear the room before documenting it. The cause was unknown. No one was to move anything unless the fire department said it was necessary.
Adrian read the message twice, then set the phone facedown.
Waiting was becoming another kind of work.
He called the head of Westwood Holdings’ finance department and asked for a secure review of Claire’s handwritten notes against the company’s archived records. He told her not to alter, annotate, or discard anything, and to preserve the original files and access logs.
“Should I notify legal?” she asked.
“Yes. And Harlan’s office.”
“Are you authorizing a full audit?”
“I’m authorizing the records to be preserved. The investigators decide what they need.”
He heard a pause on the other end.
“Understood.”
A little later, she called back. Claire’s notes had identified payments tied to a children’s charitable project. Some were marked as duplicates. Others appeared in more than one account record, although the team had not yet determined whether the entries represented duplicate charges, legitimate transfers, or accounting errors.
Adrian asked her to compare dates, authorization codes, and recipient accounts without drawing conclusions.
Then he hung up and looked through the glass doors at the ballroom. The party had been halted, but the room was still dressed for celebration: flowers, candlelight, a champagne tower. On the carpet near the entrance, something small caught the light.
His engagement ring.
He left it where it had fallen.
Rachel came to stand beside him.
“You’re not going to put it on?” she asked.
“Not tonight.”
She studied the empty space on his hand.
“Claire deserves more than a new ring and a quiet explanation.”
“Yes,” he said. “She does.”
The finance department’s next update arrived after midnight. Their preliminary comparison showed that several payments from the children’s project account matched amounts Claire had circled. In the internal ledger, the transfers were described as vendor expenses. In a separate copy of the project account records, some appeared to have been routed through a second account before reaching their listed destinations.
The amounts were not yet verified. Neither was the identity of anyone who had authorized them.
But beside several entries, a pair of initials appeared:
M.C.
Adrian stared at the screen.
He had seen Madison’s name on Claire’s papers. He had heard it in Claire’s unfinished recording. He had watched her leave the estate with luggage while police tried to stop her.
Still, initials on a ledger were not a verdict.
He forwarded the records to Harlan and said nothing else.
Near one in the morning, a new video appeared online: a guest filming the estate’s front gate, speculating about the fire and the investigation. In the comments, people demanded to know whether Emma had accused Madison before or after the party began. Someone posted Rachel’s workplace and suggested the family should “hear her side.”
Rachel saw the post over Adrian’s shoulder.
“They know where I work,” she said quietly.
“I’ll arrange a different place for you and Emma to stay.”
“I don’t want special treatment.”
“It isn’t a reward. It’s protection.”
She glanced toward Emma, asleep on the sofa with her rabbit tucked beneath her chin.
“Then make sure it protects her from being turned into a story, too.”
“I will.”
Before Adrian could call estate security, Harlan’s number appeared on his screen.
“The fire is out,” the detective said. His voice was tired but controlled. “The office took damage. The firefighters found no one inside, and they haven’t determined the cause.”
“Did anything survive?”
“Some things may have. A locked filing cabinet was still standing. The fire crew let us know it contained paper records. We’re documenting the cabinet and the water damage before anything gets moved.”
“Could those be the garage records?”
“Possibly. I’m not going to call them that until we know what’s inside.”
Adrian looked at the ledger entries glowing on his phone.
“Our finance team found payments from the children’s project account that match Claire’s notes.”
“Send me the records through the secure channel.”
“I did.”
“I saw them. The initials matter, but they don’t establish who made the transfers or why. We’ll need the originals and a full accounting.”
“I know.”
The line went quiet for a beat.
“You’re doing the right thing by preserving everything,” Harlan said. “Keep your staff from cleaning, sorting, or correcting any company records until my team tells you otherwise.”
“I’ve already instructed them.”
“Good.”
Harlan said he would call when he knew what the cabinet held. Adrian thanked him, though gratitude seemed too small for the moment.
By dawn, the first damaged ledgers were being photographed and dried under supervision. Harlan sent a short update: several books had survived, but the pages were wet and required careful handling. No conclusion about the fire had been reached. A technician had found entries for transfers from the charitable project account, though the originals would need to be compared with Westwood’s records.
In one ledger, the initials M.C. appeared beside three transfers dated in the months before Claire’s death.
Adrian read the message in the silent sitting room. Rachel had taken Emma upstairs to rest in a guest room. The child’s rabbit was no longer on the sofa; Rachel had carried it with her.
Harlan called again.
“We also found a service entry tied to invoice 4418,” he said. “The number matches the invoice Claire kept.”
“Does it say who worked on the car?”
“There’s a mechanic’s name beside it, but the ledger is damaged. We’re not treating the handwriting as confirmed until it’s examined.”
Adrian closed his eyes. “Can you reach him?”
“We’re looking into that now.”
A brief rustle came through the line. Then Harlan stopped speaking.
“What is it?” Adrian asked.
“My phone’s ringing.”
The detective switched lines. Adrian heard only the faint click of the call being answered.
“Harlan.”
A man’s voice came through, thin and breathless.
“Detective, it’s Walter Keene. I saw the ledger entry you left a message about.”
Harlan’s tone sharpened.
May you like
“Where are you, Mr. Keene?”
“I can’t tell you that over the phone. I’m sorry. I should’ve called years ago.” The man swallowed hard. “Someone just found me. You have to get here before they do.”
