Chapter 14 - Smoke Below
The deputy kicked the basement door twice before the frame broke.
Smoke rolled up the stairs.
"Stay back," he ordered.
Emily didn't.
At the bottom of the steps, a stack of banker boxes burned beside the furnace. Flames licked toward wooden shelving packed with old Mercer records.
The deputy grabbed an extinguisher.
Emily saw a shadow move near the rear utility door.
"Someone's down there!"
The shadow ran.
The deputy shouted and chased it outside.
Emily coughed, grabbed a second extinguisher from the wall, and sprayed the burning boxes until white powder filled the room.
One box had been pulled away from the others.
Its lid was half burned.
Inside were ledgers.
Old ones.
She dragged it toward the stairs.
A figure suddenly appeared behind her.
"Don't!"
It was Tyler, Daniel's cousin.
"What are you doing here?"
"Trying to stop Paul."
"Paul Bennett?"
Tyler nodded. "Gloria's brother. He came to burn the records."
Emily backed away. "Why should I believe you?"
"Because I was the idiot who laughed when you got burned, and I have been sick about it ever since."
"That doesn't make you trustworthy."
"No. But this might."
He handed her a flash drive.
"Daniel asked me to wipe security footage from the house. I work in IT. He thought I did it. I copied everything first."
Emily stared at the drive.
Sirens approached outside.
Tyler continued quickly. "There are months of clips. Gloria going through Henry's office. Daniel meeting Paul here. Them talking about the mortgage."
"Why give it to me?"
"Because I heard them talk tonight."
"About what?"
Tyler looked toward the stairs.
"You."
"What did they say?"
"Daniel said the fraud could still be blamed on you if they proved you had access to the burner phone."
"They put it in my purse."
"I know."
"What else?"
Tyler hesitated.
"Gloria told him not to panic because they had used the same trick before."
Emily went cold.
"Before when?"
Tyler swallowed.
"When your father died."
The deputy returned alone.
"Whoever was outside got away."
Emily looked back at Tyler.
He was staring at the half-burned ledger.
"Emily," he whispered, "you need to see the date on that page."
She opened it.
The entry was from the morning after Robert Carter died.
May you like
And beside a transfer of $2.4 million were two initials:
G.M. and D.M.
