Chapter 3 - The Locked Office Was Open
Ethan had not opened Claire’s office in nearly a year.
The brass key remained in a drawer upstairs.
Or it was supposed to.
The drawer was empty.
Mason stood in the hallway while Ethan tried the office door.
Unlocked.
His heart began pounding.
“Stay here.”
He stepped inside.
The room smelled wrong.
Not dusty.
Used.
Claire’s desk had been moved several inches.
One cabinet stood open.
A printer sat on a side table.
Ethan had never put a printer there.
Then he noticed a coffee cup.
Vanessa’s.
Beside it was a stack of documents.
Bank statements.
Insurance forms.
Copies of Ethan’s passport.
A copy of Mason’s birth certificate.
Ethan felt sick.
He photographed everything before touching it.
Then he called his older sister, Grace.
“Can Mason stay with you tonight?”
“What happened?”
“I’ll explain. I need him somewhere safe.”
Twenty minutes later, Grace arrived.
Mason hugged Ethan.
“You’re coming too?”
“Soon.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
After Mason left, Ethan called police.
He did not know whether the documents represented a crime.
He knew enough not to destroy or rearrange anything.
Officer Melissa Grant arrived with another patrol officer.
Ethan explained the food punishment first.
Then the blocked phone.
Then the office.
Officer Grant looked through the doorway.
“Who has access to this room?”
“Me.”
“And Vanessa?”
“She shouldn’t.”
“Who is the other person your son mentioned?”
“I don’t know.”
Security cameras covered the front porch and driveway.
Ethan opened the app.
Several days of footage were missing.
Not random hours.
Specific afternoon windows.
Every Tuesday and Thursday between 3:30 and 5:00.
Exactly when Mason came home from school.
Ethan checked system settings.
An administrator account had been added.
V_HARRIS.
Vanessa Harris.
Then another username appeared.
RCOLE.
Ethan frowned.
He knew that name.
Ryan Cole was Claire’s younger brother.
Mason’s uncle.
Ethan had not spoken to him in almost three years.
May you like
And according to Mason, Ryan had been secretly entering Claire’s old
office with Vanessa.
