Chapter 4 - The Man Buried Without a Body
By breakfast, Paige knew two things about Nathaniel Price. His death certificate was authentic, and the photograph attached to it belonged to someone else.
The man in the picture had a broken nose and gray eyes. The attorney who appeared in Richard’s old corporate photographs had brown eyes and a narrow, unbroken bridge. Leo confirmed the discrepancy through archived bar-association records.
“Someone buried a stranger under Price’s name,” Leo said.
Gabriel stood over the evidence board, arms crossed. “And someone has been using his credentials to reach my network.”
Dominic insisted that the easiest solution was to hunt Price down. Paige disagreed.
“Richard trusted Price with the transactions. If Price wanted the ledger destroyed, he could have done that years ago. Why wait until we found it?”
“Maybe he wanted us to expose Richard,” Gabriel said.
“Then who is he protecting?”
Evelyn supplied the answer that afternoon. She arrived with a battered jewelry case and set it before Paige.
Inside was a brass key attached to a small enamel tag marked 17.
“Richard gave me this after the boating accident,” she said. “He told me that if anyone asked about Nathaniel, I should take it to the police. I was frightened. I hid it instead.”
Paige studied the key. “What does it open?”
“A storage locker at South Station. I never went.”
Gabriel asked why Evelyn was surrendering it now.
“Because a woman was nearly murdered in front of me,” she replied. “And because I’m tired of helping powerful men protect their secrets.”
Paige wanted to accompany Leo to the locker. Gabriel objected to the risk, then caught himself before the objection became an order.
“I’m worried,” he admitted.
“I know. But this is my life, too.”
He nodded once. “Then we plan it properly.”
They arrived at South Station after the evening rush. Paige wore jeans and a navy coat. Leo walked several yards behind her, while Gabriel remained near the entrance with a security team. The locker was in a corridor beneath the main concourse.
The key turned smoothly.
Inside lay a metal document box and an old disposable camera. Paige lifted the box and found a handwritten note taped underneath.
IF THE GIRL FINDS THIS, TELL HER I TRIED.
Her heart thudded.
“The girl?” Leo asked.
Paige opened the box. The first document was a photograph of her mother, Margaret, standing outside a courthouse beside a much younger Nathaniel Price.
Margaret had died when Paige was seventeen. Arthur always said it was a sudden heart attack. Paige remembered the funeral, the rain, and the way her father had refused to let her see the hospital records.
She unfolded the next page.
It was a sworn statement signed by Nathaniel Price, alleging that Arthur had helped Richard conceal an illegal property seizure and that Margaret had discovered the scheme. The statement claimed Margaret intended to report the transactions to federal authorities.
The final line was underlined twice.
MARGARET BELIEVES HER HUSBAND HAS AGREED TO SILENCE HER.
Paige could not breathe.
Leo took the papers gently before they slipped from her hands. “We need to leave.”
She barely heard him.
Her father had sold her to Colin. That betrayal had seemed like the bottom of everything. Now she was looking at evidence suggesting Arthur might have helped destroy her mother as well.
Outside the station, Gabriel recognized her expression immediately. He did not ask questions in front of the guards. He simply opened the car door and waited until she was seated.
When she showed him the statement, his face hardened.
“We verify every line,” he said. “We don’t let a dead man’s accusation become your whole truth.”
Paige looked at him. “You think I’m imagining it?”
“No. I think whoever left that box knew exactly what it would do to you.”
That distinction mattered. She folded the statement and held it against her chest.
Back at the estate, Leo examined the camera. Its film had been developed long ago, but the prints were hidden inside the bottom of the box. One showed Arthur meeting Richard outside a private clinic. Another showed Margaret entering the same building two days before her death. A third showed a young Colin waiting in a car.
“Colin was there?” Paige whispered.
“He would have been nineteen,” Leo said.
Gabriel looked at the dates. “Old enough to remember.”
The discovery changed the investigation. Colin was no longer merely Paige’s abusive former fiancé. He might be a witness to what happened to her mother.
Paige demanded to see him.
“No,” Dominic said immediately. “The detention center is full of Richard’s friends.”
Gabriel glanced at Paige. “We can request a supervised interview through counsel.”
“Then do it.”
The following afternoon, Paige sat behind reinforced glass in a federal detention facility. An attorney and investigator were present. Colin entered in an orange jumpsuit, his face thinner than she remembered.
He smiled when he saw her.
“Miss me?”
“No.”
His smile faded.
Paige slid a photograph against the glass. “Why were you outside the clinic the week my mother died?”
Colin looked at it. For one second, something like fear crossed his face.
“I don’t know what that is.”
“You do.”
He leaned toward the microphone. “Ask your father.”
“He’s in Geneva.”
“Then ask why he left so fast.”
Paige kept her voice steady. “What happened to my mother?”
Colin stared at her. “You really don’t know.”
Before she could answer, his attorney interrupted and ended the interview.
As the guards escorted Colin away, he turned once and called through the glass.
“She didn’t die at the clinic, Paige. She died trying to get away from it.”
Paige returned to the estate with a new determination. She wanted the medical records, the clinic’s ownership history, and the names of everyone who had worked there. Gabriel assigned Leo to the investigation, but Paige insisted on reviewing the documents herself.
That night she found a letter hidden inside the jewelry case’s lining. It was written in her mother’s unmistakable looping handwriting.
My darling Paige, if you ever learn what happened, please understand that I stayed longer than I should have because I thought I could protect you from inside the house. I was wrong. You deserve the truth, even if telling it costs me everything.
Paige read it until the words blurred.
At the bottom was a name.
Detective Elena Mercer.
Beneath it, a phone number.
May you like
When Paige dialed, a woman answered on the second ring.
“I wondered how long it would take you to call,” the detective said.
