Chapter 1 - Harrison Found the List Before His Father Came HomeMalcolm Hartwell had barely closed the front door when he heard his son scream.
"DAD!"
The sound came from the living room.
Not surprise.
Not excitement.
Fear.
Malcolm dropped his briefcase and ran.
What he saw stopped him in the doorway.
Ten-year-old Harrison was on the floor beside the sofa.
A dozen white tablets were scattered across the dark hardwood.
Cordelia Price, the housekeeper who had worked for the Hartwell family for more than twenty years, was kneeling beside him with both hands around his arms.
"CORDELIA!"
She looked up.
Malcolm crossed the room in three strides and pulled his son toward him.
"Get away from him."
Cordelia immediately released Harrison.
She stepped backward.
Her face was pale.
"Mr. Hartwell..."
Malcolm crouched beside Harrison.
"Did you take anything?"
"No."
"Did you swallow one of those?"
"No, Dad."
"Are you sure?"
Harrison nodded quickly.
"I didn't."
Malcolm looked over his son's face.
No obvious injury.
No sign that he was losing consciousness.
Still, Malcolm's heart hammered.
He looked at Cordelia.
"What were you doing?"
Cordelia stared at the pills.
Then at Malcolm.
Something strange happened.
The anger disappeared from her face.
Confusion replaced it.
She raised one hand to her forehead.
"I..."
"What?"
"I don't remember."
Malcolm stared.
"What do you mean you don't remember?"
Cordelia looked around the living room as though she'd only just realized where she was.
"I don't know."
"You were holding my son on the floor."
"I was?"
Harrison pressed himself against Malcolm.
"She was trying to stop me."
Malcolm looked down.
"Stop you from what?"
Harrison pointed toward a brown leather work bag beside the coffee table.
Cordelia saw the bag.
Her entire expression changed.
Fear.
Immediate.
Sharp.
Real.
"I opened it," Harrison said.
Cordelia stepped toward the bag.
Malcolm moved between them.
"Stay where you are."
"Sir, please."
"Don't."
Cordelia stopped.
Harrison whispered:
"I was looking for the charger she said I could use."
Cordelia closed her eyes.
"I didn't say—"
"You did yesterday."
Harrison pointed toward the leather bag.
"I couldn't find it, so I opened the inside pocket."
Malcolm looked at the pills again.
"That's where these came from?"
Harrison nodded.
"There was a bottle."
Malcolm carefully picked it up using a tissue from the side table.
The pharmacy label had been partly torn.
Only one word remained clearly visible.
HARTWELL.
Malcolm frowned.
"Whose prescription is this?"
Cordelia didn't answer.
"Mrs. Price."
Nothing.
Then Harrison said:
"That's not the weird thing."
Malcolm looked at him.
"What is?"
"There was a paper."
Cordelia's breathing stopped.
Harrison reached toward the floor near the bag.
A folded sheet of cream-colored paper lay partly beneath the coffee table.
Cordelia stepped forward again.
"Please don't."
Malcolm blocked her.
"Why?"
"That paper isn't—"
"Isn't what?"
Cordelia looked terrified.
Malcolm picked it up.
The sheet had been folded twice.
No letterhead.
No explanation.
Only names.
Dozens of them.
Some Malcolm recognized immediately.
Frederick Hartwell.
His father.
Dead eighteen months.
Cassandra Hartwell Vale.
Malcolm's older sister.
Declan Hartwell.
His younger brother.
Malcolm Hartwell.
His own name.
Then Harrison.
Harrison Hartwell.
There were cousins.
Former executives.
Two attorneys.
A family physician.
People Malcolm hadn't spoken to in years.
Beside several names were handwritten dates.
And through some names—
thick red lines.
Malcolm felt something cold move through him.
"What's this?"
Cordelia looked away.
Harrison leaned closer to his father.
"That's what I saw."
Malcolm examined the crossed names.
Three immediately stood out.
His father, Frederick.
His father's longtime accountant, Samuel Price.
Dead three years.
And Malcolm's uncle Theodore.
Dead nine months.
All three names crossed through in red.
He looked at Cordelia.
"Why are dead members of my family on a list in your bag?"
Cordelia swallowed.
"I can't explain."
"You'd better try."
"I promised."
"Promised who?"
No answer.
Harrison tugged Malcolm's sleeve.
"Dad."
"What?"
"When I said Grandpa's name..."
Malcolm looked down.
Harrison pointed toward Cordelia.
"That's when she got scared."
Malcolm slowly looked at the housekeeper.
Cordelia's face had gone white.
He unfolded the paper completely.
At the bottom was one handwritten sentence.
If Frederick is crossed out, open the ledger before they reach the boy.
Malcolm read it twice.
"The boy?"
His eyes moved toward Harrison.
Cordelia whispered:
"No."
Malcolm looked at her.
"What does this have to do with my son?"
She shook her head.
"You need to call your attorney."
"Why?"
"Not the family attorney."
Malcolm frowned.
"Walter Keene has represented us for twenty-five years."
"Exactly."
The answer came so quickly Malcolm stopped.
Cordelia looked toward Harrison.
Then toward the windows.
Her voice dropped.
"You need someone outside the Hartwell family."
Malcolm stared at the pills.
The list.
His father's crossed-out name.
"Tell me what happened."
Cordelia pressed her fingertips against her temple.
"I remember Harrison opening my bag."
"And after that?"
"I saw the bottle."
"What bottle?"
"The one on the floor."
"What is it?"
Her breathing became uneven.
"I shouldn't have had it with me."
"Why?"
"Because it belonged to your father."
Malcolm froze.
"My father has been dead for eighteen months."
"I know."
"Why do you have his medication?"
Cordelia looked at him.
"Because those aren't the pills that were supposed to be inside that bottle."
The room became completely silent.
Malcolm stared.
"What are you saying?"
Cordelia's voice was barely audible.
"Your father discovered that before he died."
Malcolm felt Harrison clutch his jacket.
Cordelia continued.
"And he made me promise that if anything happened to him, I would keep the bottle and the list together."
Malcolm looked again at Frederick's name.
A red line through it.
"What does the red line mean?"
Cordelia shook her head.
"Not here."
"Why not?"
Before she could answer, headlights swept across the living-room windows.
A car had entered the driveway.
Cordelia turned toward the glass.
Her face changed.
"Who is that?"
Malcolm looked.
A black Mercedes stopped outside.
His sister, Cassandra, stepped out.
Malcolm frowned.
He hadn't called her.
Cordelia whispered:
"How does she know you're home?"
May you like
And for the first time, Malcolm realized the most frightening possibility wasn't that Cordelia had been hiding something.
It was that someone already knew Harrison had found it.
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