We reached the cemetery shortly after two in the morning.
Dad’s shed no longer felt safe.
Neither did the storage unit.
Vale refused to return to the police station.
That told me more about the size of the problem than anything else had.
We moved into Pinecrest’s old records building, a brick structure no longer used except for archived burial maps. Dad had a key.
Naturally.
Vale spread Claire’s binder across a metal table.
Dad stood opposite him.
They looked like men preparing to argue about sixteen years of unfinished business.
I interrupted before either began.
“No.”
Dad frowned.
“No what?”
“No secret history until we decide one thing.”
“What?”
“Do we trust each other long enough to get the ledger?”
Vale answered first.
“No.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“But we may not need to.”
Dad almost smiled.
“That sounds like Howard.”
“You haven’t changed either.”
“I faked my death.”
“In personality.”
I put both hands on the table.
“Enough.”
They stopped.
Prison had given me one useful skill: controlling a room containing men who disliked each other.
“We don’t need trust,” I said. “We need aligned interests.”
Dad nodded slowly.
Vale did too.
“Carter wants the ledger destroyed. Whoever attacked the marina wants Claire’s binder. We want the ledger before either of them gets it.”
Dad looked toward me.
“And Reagan?”
“I don’t know.”
“You saw her.”
“She let me escape.”
Vale spoke quietly.
“She also got the binder out.”
Dad’s face tightened.
“She poisoned me.”
“According to you,” I said.
He stared at me.
“You doubt that?”
“I doubt everything.”
That silenced him.
Vale opened Claire’s structural notes.
A floor plan appeared.
The original Silver Lake house looked tiny compared with what stood there now.
Claire had numbered spaces.
One through twenty-three.
Seventeen was beneath the western study wall.
A foundation cavity.
Dad studied it.
“I covered this during the renovation.”
“Exactly,” Vale said.
“You knew?”
“Claire showed me.”
Dad glared.
“She showed you my house plans?”
“She helped draw them.”
“My house.”
“Her house too.”
I stepped between them verbally before the argument could become archaeological.
“How do we reach it?”
Dad traced the newer construction.
“Not from inside without breaking concrete.”
“From outside?”
“Possibly through the old drainage line.”
Vale looked at him.
“The lake drain.”
Dad nodded.
I stared.
“You want to crawl into a pipe under the house.”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic.”
Dawn was still hours away.
Carter would expect us to avoid Silver Lake after my first intrusion.
That was our only advantage.
We drove separately.
Vale took an unmarked sedan.
Dad and I used the cemetery utility truck.
I sat beside him in silence for several minutes.
Finally he said, “Claire trusted Howard.”
“I know.”
“That surprises me.”
“I noticed.”
“She never told me.”
“You never told her everything either.”
He looked through the windshield.
“That’s fair.”
The road curved toward the lake.
I asked, “Did Mom love you when she died?”
Dad’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I believe so.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No.”
He drove another hundred yards.
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“No.”
At least he had stopped pretending certainty where none existed.
“She was angry with me,” he continued. “She had every reason. But the last night she was fully conscious, she asked me to take you fishing.”
I looked at him.
“She hated fishing.”
“I know.”
“She said we never talked when we were looking at each other.”
That sounded exactly like Mom.
Dad’s voice softened.
“She thought sitting beside water gave men permission to tell the truth without feeling watched.”
We entered the trees behind Silver Lake.
I turned toward him.
“Maybe we should have fished more.”
“Yes.”
Nothing else needed saying.
We parked half a mile away.
Vale met us beside the shoreline.
The drainage outlet sat behind reeds below the property retaining wall. Dad located a steel grate buried under vegetation.
It had been welded shut.
Recently.
“Carter,” he said.
Vale examined the weld.
“Or someone else protecting the ledger.”
Dad used a compact battery saw from the truck.
The sound seemed deafening in the early morning darkness.
I watched the house through trees.
No lights.
After ninety seconds, the grate loosened.
The pipe beyond was barely three feet high.
I looked at Dad.
“You first.”
He shook his head.
“My shoulder won’t fit comfortably.”
I glanced at his chest scar.
“Vale?”
He answered, “I’m armed.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“It means you’re more mobile.”
“Wonderful.”
I crawled inside.
Cold lake water ran around my knees.
The pipe narrowed gradually.
Concrete scraped my jacket.
Dad’s voice came faintly through the old phone.
“Approximately forty feet.”
“At twenty-five, I already dislike you.”
“That seems unrelated to the pipe.”
“Mostly.”
The line crackled.
Vale said, “Quiet.”
I stopped.
Somewhere above me, a dull vibration.
Footsteps?
A vehicle?
Hard to tell underground.
I continued.
At forty feet, the pipe ended behind brickwork.
Dad instructed me to search the right side.
I found an iron ring.
Pulled.
Nothing.
Again.
A small brick panel rotated inward.
Behind it was darkness.
I crawled through.
The hidden cellar was barely large enough to stand.
I raised my flashlight.
Dust covered shelves filled with old paint cans, rusted tools, and boxes.
One shelf held a waterproof metal case.
I knew immediately.
“Found something.”
Dad’s breathing came across the phone.
“Describe it.”
“Gray case. Two locks.”
Vale said, “Claire used combination locks.”
“Numbers?”
Silence.
Dad answered first.
“Try Finnley’s birthday.”
I did.
Nothing.
Vale said, “Try Claire’s.”
Nothing.
I stared at the case.
Mom had left clues designed around mistrust.
What would she choose that Dad would not guess?
A date meaningful to her and me.
Then I remembered.
The lake.
When I was thirteen, Mom and I got trapped overnight on a small island after our canoe drifted loose. Dad had been furious.
Mom thought it was hilarious.
August seventeenth.
8-17.
K-17.
I entered 0817.
The first lock opened.
The second required four digits.
I thought longer.
Then tried the year.
It clicked.
My hands began trembling.
“Open,” I whispered.
Dad said nothing.
Neither did Vale.
I lifted the lid.
Inside was a black ledger wrapped in waxed cloth.
A smaller envelope rested on top.
FINNLEY.
Mom’s handwriting.
Everything disappeared for a second.
The house.
Carter.
Vale.
Dad.
Prison.
Only that name remained.
I sat on the cellar floor.
“Finnley?” Dad asked.
“There’s a letter.”
“Read it later.”
His voice shook.
That was how I knew how much it cost him to say it.
I placed the envelope inside my jacket and opened the ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Accounts.
Payments.
Codes matched to people.
Judges.
Executives.
Foreign officials.
Police.
Company directors.
Some names I recognized from newspapers.
Others meant nothing.
Then I reached the first page.
A heading.
KESTREL AUTHORIZED PARTNERS.
Three names.
Claire Dennis.
Howard Vale.
And one more.
I stopped.
“No.”
Vale’s voice came through the phone.
“What?”
I read it again.
The name remained.
My throat tightened.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“Your name isn’t here.”
Silence.
“What does that mean?”
I moved the flashlight closer.
The third name was written in Mom’s hand.
REAGAN MERCER.
I stared at it.
Not Reagan Dennis.
Reagan Mercer.
The same surname as the inmate who had approached me during my fourth month in Oakwood.
Mercer.
The man Dad had caused to be transferred.
I heard Vale swear through the phone.
Dad said, “That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I met Reagan twelve years ago.”
Vale’s voice was flat.
“No, Camden.”
Dad breathed into the line.
“What?”
Vale answered.
“You met her twelve years ago.”
A pause.
“Claire knew her long before that.”
Something scraped behind me.
I turned.
The brick panel had closed.
“Dad.”
No answer.
Static filled the phone.
“Dad?”
The cellar light from my flashlight caught movement near the opposite wall.
Another doorway.
One not shown on Claire’s map.
It opened.
Reagan stepped through.
She held a pistol.
I raised my hands slowly.
She looked at the ledger.
Then at me.
“You found it.”
“How do you know Mercer?”
Her face changed.
Good.
I continued.
“Was he your family?”
She shut the hidden door behind her.
“My brother.”
The answer hit with immediate force.
“You put him in Oakwood.”
“No.”
“He approached me.”
“I know.”
“Dad had him transferred.”
“I know.”
“Why was he there?”
Her eyes filled.
“To keep you alive.”
I almost laughed.
“Everyone keeps saying that right before admitting something unforgivable.”
“I didn’t send him there.”
“Who did?”
“Claire.”
“My mother had been dead thirteen years.”
“She arranged it before she died.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
I lifted the ledger slightly.
“Your name is on the first page.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Kestrel before Dad met you.”
“Yes.”
“You married him anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Reagan’s voice became very quiet.
“Because Claire asked me to.”
I stared at her.
Footsteps pounded somewhere above.
Carter.
Reagan looked toward the ceiling.
“He found the drainage grate.”
She moved closer.
“Give me the ledger.”
“No.”
“Finnley, if Carter gets into this cellar, he will kill both of us.”
“You expected me to die in prison.”
Her face tightened.
“That recording wasn’t what you think.”
“It rarely is, apparently.”
“We can argue after we leave.”
“How?”
She pointed toward the second passage.
“Claire built two exits.”
“Of course she did.”
For the first time, Reagan almost smiled.
Then a gunshot cracked above us.
Dust drifted from the ceiling.
Carter shouted.
“Finnley!”
Reagan raised her weapon toward the hidden doorway.
“Decide.”
Another shot.
Closer.
The brick panel behind me shook.
I looked down at the ledger.
At Mom’s handwriting.
At Reagan Mercer’s name.
At the envelope inside my jacket that might finally explain why every adult in my life had turned protection into another word for deception.
Then I heard Dad shout from somewhere outside.
A third gunshot answered him.
Reagan’s face went white.
“Camden.”
She ran toward the second passage.
I followed.
Behind us, the brick wall burst inward.
Carter stepped through the dust with a pistol in his hand.
He saw the ledger.
And smiled.
“There it is.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: Carter Followed Us Into My Mother’s Escape Tunnel, and Reagan Finally Explained Why She Married My Father Under a Dead Woman’s Instructions
The Day I Walked Out of Prison, My Stepmother Told Me My Father Was Dead and His House Was No Longer Mine
Part 8 of 20
