We strapped Sophie into her car seat and drove to the address on the alert.
Ruth kept calling someone named Mara, but every call went to voicemail.
“Who is Mara?”
“The contractor Daniel hired.”
“Another person you kept secret?”
Ruth lowered the phone.
“Yes.”
The Miller house stood at the end of a narrow lane.
A SOLD sign leaned against the fence, and two unfamiliar cars were parked beside Gavin’s.
“He said Friday,” I whispered.
“He lied.”
Gavin emerged with a real estate agent and a silver-haired woman in a green coat.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
The silver-haired woman looked from him to me.
“Mr.
Hale said the owner had passed and the family approved the sale.”
“I’m his wife.
I approved nothing.”
Gavin pointed toward the road.
“This is a private business matter.”
“You made it my business when you tried to sell my daughter’s home.”
The woman removed her glasses.
“My name is Eleanor Price.
I’m supposed to complete the purchase on Friday.”
“You won’t be completing anything,” Ruth said.
Gavin unlocked the front door.
“The company owns this property.
Anna has been misled.”
Eleanor did not move.
“You told me the title was uncontested.”
“It is.”
“Then why is the owner’s widow holding a key?”
I walked past him and inserted Daniel’s brass key.
The lock turned.
Inside, fresh paint covered the walls.
A wooden crib stood in the front room beneath a window, still wrapped in protective cloth.
Ruth touched its rail.
“He built this himself.”
“You let him work like this when he could barely stand?”
“He would come here after treatment,” she said.
“I begged him to stop.”
“And then you drove him back the next day.”
Gavin stepped inside.
“This performance changes nothing.”
Eleanor blocked the agent from following him.
“No one touches a document until I understand what I nearly bought.”
At the end of the hall stood a bright blue door.
My key slid into its lock, but Gavin grabbed my hand.
“Don’t open that.”
“You seem frightened of a room you claim belongs to you.”
“It contains company records.”
Ruth pushed his hand away.
“It contains Daniel’s work.”
I turned the key.
Shelves lined the room.
Each one held labeled boxes: SOPHIE—FIRST BIRTHDAY, SOPHIE—AGE FIVE, ANNA—WHEN YOU’RE ANGRY WITH ME.
A small television sat on a desk beside a blue ledger.
I pressed the first button.
Daniel appeared on the screen.
“Hello, my girls.
If Gavin is in the room, do not let him take the ledger.”
Gavin lunged past me and seized the blue book.
Eleanor stepped in front of the door.
“Put it back.”
“You’re a buyer, not a police officer.”
“I was a property solicitor for thirty-two years.
Put it back.”
Gavin tucked the ledger under his coat.
“This book contains confidential company accounts.”
“Then why did Daniel hide it in his daughter’s room?” I asked.
“Because the medication had confused him.”
The television continued playing.
“Gavin will say I was confused,” Daniel said on the screen.
“I wasn’t.
I discovered what he had done six weeks before Sophie was born.”
Gavin pulled the power cable from the wall.
The screen went black.
Ruth raised her phone.
“I recorded that.”
He knocked the phone from her hand, then froze as Eleanor bent to pick it up.
“I saw that,” Eleanor said.
“And so did your real estate agent.”
Gavin walked backward toward the hall.
“You have no idea what’s in this ledger.”
“Then leave it,” I said.
“No.”
He ran outside and locked himself in his car.
I reached the driveway as the engine started.
“Gavin!”
He lowered his window.
“Daniel made copies of everything,” I said, though I had no idea if it was true.
Gavin’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
“Ask your mother what she signed,” he replied.
He drove away.
I turned toward Ruth.
She stood beneath the SOLD sign, unable to meet my eyes.
“What did you sign?”
Her answer came so softly I nearly missed it.
“The paper that may have given him your house.
part 5 is next
