Chapter 6 - THE PHOTOGRAPH ON THE TABLE
Andrew examined the family photograph in the hospital waiting room.
It had been taken twenty-eight years earlier.
Thomas Wilson stood beside Margaret in the garden of their first home.
Andrew, ten years old, stood between them.
Thomas died five years before Andrew married Natalie.
Margaret kept the photograph beside her bed until it appeared inside the storage room.
Andrew removed the damaged backing.
A small brass key fell into his palm.
Behind the photograph was a folded note.
The handwriting belonged to Margaret.
If Andrew finds this, ask Selena about the lamp.
Andrew returned to his mother.
“Who is Selena?”
Margaret seemed surprised.
“Our housekeeper.”
“We don’t have a housekeeper named Selena.”
“Natalie dismissed her.”
“When?”
“After she saw the room.”
Andrew remembered Selena Brooks.
She had worked for the Wilson family for twelve years.
Natalie told him Selena resigned suddenly to care for a sick sister.
Andrew had sent her a generous final payment.
The money was returned.
He had not noticed.
“What lamp?” he asked.
Margaret pointed toward the photograph.
“The old one.”
The dim lamp on the storage-room table.
Selena had placed it there after discovering Margaret locked inside.
She told Margaret to tap the switch twice whenever Natalie entered.
“Why?”
“She said the lamp would remember.”
Andrew felt the brass key in his hand.
“What does this open?”
Margaret looked toward the black leather briefcase beside his chair.
“Your father’s desk.”
Thomas’s study had remained locked since his death.
Natalie suggested turning it into a designer library.
Margaret refused.
The original desk remained inside.
Andrew returned to the mansion with a police escort.
Natalie was waiting in the entrance hall.
“This is still my home.”
“It is my mother’s home.”
Natalie smiled coldly.
“You should check the deed.”
Andrew stopped.
The confidence in her voice frightened him more than anger.
Police documented the storage room.
The lamp remained on the small table.
Its shade was stained.
Its cord had been cut.
Someone had tried to destroy it after the ambulance left.
Andrew picked it up carefully.
Something rattled inside the base.
Natalie watched from the hallway.
“It is an old lamp.”
Andrew looked at her.
“That is what you said about the photograph.”
He placed both objects inside an evidence box.
Then he walked toward Thomas’s study.
The brass key opened the desk.
Inside was an empty space where Margaret’s family trust should have been.
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Only one document remained.
A property deed transferring the mansion to Natalie Wilson.
