Chapter 3 - What Bernice Took“What letter?”
Amelia’s eyes filled again.
“I wasn’t supposed to read it.”
“That’s okay.”
“Mommy wrote my name on it.”
Damien crouched in front of her.
“Where was it?”
“In my rabbit.”
Amelia pointed toward a stuffed rabbit on the bed.
Damien picked it up.
A seam along the back had been cut open.
“Grandma did that?”
Amelia nodded.
“She said she was fixing it.”
Damien carefully opened the torn seam.
Nothing remained inside.
“What did the letter say?”
“I only read some.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
Amelia squeezed her fingers together.
“Mommy said grown-ups sometimes tell children that keeping secrets is being loyal.”
Damien swallowed.
“She wrote that?”
Amelia nodded.
“And she said if somebody asked me about the blue key, I should tell you everything.”
“What else?”
“She said the key opens something that belongs to me and you.”
Damien looked toward the hallway.
Bernice had searched Amelia’s room.
Found Elise’s hidden letter.
Yet she still did not have the key.
Which meant Amelia possessed something Bernice desperately wanted.
“Where is the key?”
“I don’t have it.”
Damien searched her face.
“Are you sure?”
Amelia leaned close to his ear.
“Mommy said never say where it is inside this house.”
Damien’s heart pounded.
Even at five years old, Amelia had remembered.
Damien took her downstairs.
Sofia was waiting near the staff entrance.
She looked terrified.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Damien.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.”
“I should have told you sooner.”
“Sooner?”
Sofia looked at Amelia.
Damien understood.
“Amelia, can you wait in the kitchen with Nora?”
Nora, the cook, immediately stepped forward.
When Amelia was gone, Damien faced Sofia.
“What else have you seen?”
Sofia clasped her hands.
“Mrs. Bernice has been… different with Amelia whenever you travel.”
“How different?”
“Mean words. Long punishments. Taking her phone. Making her sit alone.”
“Did you see physical punishment before today?”
“Not like today.”
Damien nodded.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Shame crossed Sofia’s face.
“She said if staff interfered with family discipline, we would be fired. She also said you agreed.”
“I never agreed.”
“I know that now.”
Damien softened.
“What happened yesterday?”
Sofia hesitated.
“Mrs. Bernice went through Amelia’s room.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“What did she take?”
“A white envelope.”
Damien’s jaw tightened.
“Did you see where she went afterward?”
“To Mr. Walter’s old study.”
Damien’s father had died six years earlier.
The study had remained mostly untouched.
Bernice still kept a key.
Damien walked there immediately.
The door was locked.
He tried the handle again.
“Mom!”
Bernice appeared at the end of the hall.
“If you’re looking for a dramatic confrontation, Damien, I’m too tired.”
“Open Dad’s study.”
“No.”
“It’s my property.”
“Not exactly.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Read the trust.”
Damien stepped closer.
“Did you take a letter from Amelia’s stuffed rabbit?”
Bernice looked genuinely bored.
“I threw away some childish nonsense Elise hid years ago.”
“Why?”
“Because Elise spent her final months poisoning that child against me.”
“Elise was dying.”
“And dying people can still be vindictive.”
Damien stared.
He had never heard his mother speak about Elise that way.
Not openly.
“What was in the letter?”
Bernice’s eyes sharpened.
“You should ask your wife.”
“She’s dead.”
“Yes.”
The word landed between them like something ugly.
Damien noticed Sofia standing far behind him.
Her phone was no longer recording.
But she was watching.
Bernice unlocked the study.
“Search whatever you like.”
Damien entered.
Dust hung in shafts of afternoon light.
Walter’s desk remained beneath the large windows.
Damien opened drawers.
Nothing.
File cabinets.
Empty.
He turned.
“These were full.”
Bernice shrugged.
“I cleaned.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
Sofia quietly spoke from the doorway.
“No.”
Bernice turned.
Sofia looked frightened but continued.
“You emptied them three weeks ago.”
Damien stared at her.
Bernice’s face changed.
“You’re fired.”
“No,” Damien said.
“You don’t employ her.”
“I pay the household payroll.”
“Through an account I control.”
Damien looked at his mother.
There it was again.
Control.
Always control.
He returned to the desk.
One drawer resisted.
He pulled harder.
The false bottom shifted.
Beneath it was a shallow compartment.
Inside lay one object.
A photograph.
Elise stood beside Walter at a charity gala eight years earlier.
Both were smiling.
On the back, Walter had written something.
Damien read it aloud.
Elise was right about Northlight. I should have listened sooner.
Bernice moved toward him.
Damien stepped back.
“What is Northlight?”
“Nothing.”
“My father believed it was something.”
“He was sick.”
“So was Elise. Convenient.”
Bernice’s expression hardened.
“You are crossing a line.”
Damien laughed once.
“You made my daughter crawl on a treadmill because you were looking for a key.”
He held up the photograph.
“I think we crossed the line a long time ago.”
Then Sofia gasped.
She had noticed something Damien had missed.
In the photograph, Walter was holding a folder.
Stamped on its corner were three words.
NORTHLIGHT HOLDINGS LLC.
And beneath them—
May you like
an address.
The address of the mansion.
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