Page 69 of From the Darkness

As she stepped into the bedroom, she went stock-still. She’d been thinking that while she was up here, it might be prudent to make the bed. But it was already made.

Had Troy come back here and taken care of that? Or had Mrs. Martindale or someone else been snooping around?

With a sigh, she turned to the closet and followed the directions Troy had given her a few hours earlier. Just as he’d said, there was a seam in the paneling of the wall on the right.

At least that was something he hadn’t lied about, she thought with a snort.

Once she knew what she was doing, it took only a few moments to figure out how to press correctly on the wall. Still, she felt a small sense of triumph when she heard a click and saw a panel slide to the side. Beyond it was a small, dark recess. When her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she spied the glint of dull metal.

Gingerly she reached in and hauled out a heavy, square box about a foot on each side. Carrying it to the desk, she sat down, unlocked it, and lifted the lid.

Inside were the items Troy had mentioned—the kind of stuff you’d expect to find in a safe deposit box. Troy and Grace’s marriage license. Birth certificates. Grace’s death certificate, which Bree couldn’t stop herself from reading. The cause of death was listed as drowning.

For long moments, she sat there picturing the accident. Then she resolutely went back to the other papers in the box.

She smiled when she saw that Troy had put in two pictures that Dinah had drawn with pastels. One showed the garden bright with flowers with the headlands in the background and a blue sweep of ocean and sky. The other was of a little girl and her father working in the garden. The pictures were quite good for a six-year-old. Dinah obviously had considerable artistic talent.

But that wasn’t what Bree focused on. The drawings showed Dinah and Troy at a happy time in their lives. Was that why he had put them in the strongbox—because things were so different now, and he wanted to preserve a reminder of their life when things had been happy? And what was he planning when he disappeared for good? Was he planning to take Dinah with him or abandon her? Probably the latter, since he’d made Bree promise to take care of his daughter. She thought again about the way he’d sounded then. Panicked. Upset. As she recalled those moments, her emotions softened. He wanted Dinah safe, and maybe he thought that leaving her was his only choice. Maybe he knew he’d be on the run, and if whoever was after him caught up, it would be a disaster if she were along. She decided to take that interpretation, as she set the pictures aside and looked for something worth hiding. She found it under the deed to the house.

Troy’s will was there. But she couldn’t bear to read it. Instead, she dug farther and found some stock certificates.

The certificates that went with the balance sheet she’d seen from Enteck. Bree shuffled through them. As far as she could see, they would have represented millions of dollars—before the company went belly-up. Now they were practically worthless.

Someone had sunk a lot of money into the failed company. And when Bree looked at the name on the certificates, she gasped.

Helen London. Not Troy. Helen.

As she stared at the official-looking pieces of paper, she knew the assumptions she made were wrong. These were Helen’s stocks. Which meant Helen—not Troy—had lost millions. Her whole share of the family fortune, if this information was correct. And there was no reason to believe it wasn’t—unless the certificates were bogus and this was some kind of elaborate scheme. To what? She simply couldn’t think of a reason.

Which led inevitably back to the conclusion that Helen was in financial trouble.

Bree rocked back in her chair, trying to wrap her mind around what she’d just discovered. In the first place, Helen had lied to her. At least by omission. She’d acted like nothing had changed—like she was still well off. But unless she had some hidden source of income, above and beyond her State Department salary, this bad investment had done irreparable damage to her finances.

Bree went back to the strongbox, looking for more information, and found several letters clipped together.

Her eyes widened as she read the correspondence between Troy and his sister. The letters were dated after Grace had died. Apparently, Helen had sent the balance sheet from the accounting firm and the stock certificates to Troy, telling him she was broke and asking him to advance her money on her share of Ravencrest. He’d told her he didn’t have a spare cent because Grace had sunk so much into house restoration, and he couldn’t give her anything substantial until some of his savings certificates came due—which wasn’t until next year.

Helen had come back with a proposal to put Ravencrest on the market. Troy had vetoed the plan. There had been some back-and-forth discussion, but Troy remained opposed to selling the property. The tone of the correspondence began politely. By the end, Helen in particular was unable to hide her anger. And she warned Troy that if he didn’t go along with her plans, he was going to be sorry.

The threats made Bree’s throat close. Helen had told her she was worried about Troy, but in these letters, she hadn’t sounded worried about anyone but herself.

Bree got up, carried the box back to the closet, and stowed it where she’d found it. It had been safe there for months, and she had no reason to believe it would be found now. Once it was hidden again, and the key was back in her pocket, she paced toward the desk.

She didn’t want to think anything bad about Helen—her best friend over the years. But evidence was piling up, evidence that it was impossible to ignore.

Like—apparently Helen had kept Bree and Troy apart by lying about losing touch with her.

Why? What was her motive once Grace was dead? And what else had she done? Bree thought about that. Helen had always been sweet to her, but there were people who had asked her why they were friends. She’d had the feeling they wanted to tell her something she didn’t want to hear about Ms. London. So, she’d always made it clear that she wasn’t into gossip about her friend.

Still, some of Helen’s schemes and grudges had made her uneasy. Like the time in college, she’d been angry at Stacy Masters. In retaliation, she’d started a whisper campaign about Stacy. As she’d watched the whole dorm gang up against the other girl, Bree had been glad that Helen’s wrath wasn’t directed at her. In fact, that had been an underlying element in their relationship. Bree had been careful not to make Helen angry—because she understood the consequences.

But now it didn’t seem like she could avoid them. Helen was up to something. Some elaborate plot that was still unfolding. Was she working against Troy? Or had they made some kind of pact? And were they using Bree Brennan for their own purposes?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a noise outside—a high, frightened scream carrying above the constant sound of the waves. She rushed to the window, but she could see nothing.

Bolting out of Troy’s room, she hurried to the stairs, then quickly descended.

Mrs. Martindale was standing in the front hall looking alarmed.

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