Chapter 5 - Elena’s VoiceNo one answered the telephone.
It rang 6 times somewhere below them, stopped, and began again less than a minute later.
Weston did not look toward the sound.
He remained inside Elena’s hidden office with the photograph in his hand and his uncle’s younger face staring back at him from another lifetime.
Rafe Hargrove.
The family uncle who had taught Weston to shoot when he was 12.
The man who had taken Tristan to his first boxing match.
The charming, laughing relative who appeared every Christmas carrying expensive gifts and inappropriate stories.
The man Tristan had joked about less than 24 hours earlier when mentioning a chef who had once tried to poison him.
Holly watched the brothers absorb the photograph differently.
Weston became colder.
Tristan became restless.
Evelyn simply looked exhausted.
Mary did not understand the danger of the name.
She climbed into the chair behind Elena’s desk and traced a finger through the dust.
“Mommy sat here.”
Weston finally looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Are you mad at her?”
His face broke for only a second.
“No.”
“You look mad.”
“I’m mad at myself.”
Mary considered that.
Then she nodded as though adults being angry at themselves was a familiar enough problem.
Holly picked up the black ledger.
It was smaller than she expected.
No title.
No company name.
Pages filled with dates, initials, numbers, horse registration codes and payment transfers.
Several entries had been marked by Elena in red ink.
A.H.
V.K.
S.R.
R.H.
Arthur Hargrove.
Victor Kline.
The last 2 were obvious possibilities.
Santino Rossi.
Rafe Hargrove.
Holly felt the floor tilt beneath her.
Weston looked over her shoulder.
“Can you read it?”
“Some of it.”
“How?”
“Kline taught everyone his codes without realizing he was teaching us.”
Tristan leaned closer.
“That sounds unlike a criminal mastermind.”
“He wasn’t a mastermind. He was arrogant.”
Holly turned several pages.
“Horse identifiers. First letter is facility. Second is sex. Numbers indicate year and acquisition sequence.”
She found a sequence she remembered.
BM-04-19.
Her throat tightened.
“That mare.”
“What mare?” Weston asked.
“Her name was Pearl.”
The photograph Tristan had pulled from Holly’s old file showed her beside a pale mare with both eyes bandaged.
Pearl.
Holly touched the code.
“Kline blinded her because she wouldn’t run in a private match.”
Mary looked up sharply.
“Why?”
Every adult in the room wished she had not heard.
Holly closed the ledger.
“Because he was a bad man.”
Mary’s expression became solemn.
“Did you save her?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“She lived on a farm in Idaho until she got very old.”
“Was she happy?”
Holly thought about a sunlit paddock 1 spring morning. Pearl walking carefully through grass she could not see, guided by a small chestnut gelding that never left her side.
“Yes.”
Mary nodded.
“Good.”
Weston watched Holly longer than necessary.
Then Tristan reached for the recorder.
“Perhaps Elena can explain the rest.”
Weston’s hand closed around his wrist.
“No.”
Tristan looked at him.
Weston stared at the device.
“I’ll do it.”
He picked it up.
The battery should have been dead after 3 years, but a charging cable lay beneath the ledger.
They connected it to the old computer on Elena’s desk.
The screen flickered alive after 2 attempts.
There were 17 audio files.
The last had been recorded 4 days before Elena died.
Weston sat down.
Nobody suggested privacy.
Perhaps because there were no private things left.
He pressed play.
Static.
Then Elena Hargrove’s voice filled the little room.
Mary stopped breathing.
Weston closed his eyes.
Holly had never heard Elena speak.
Her voice was warmer than she expected.
Strong.
Tired.
“Recording 17. April 8. If you are hearing this, then either I became unnecessarily dramatic or something has happened to me.”
A faint laugh followed.
Weston’s face twisted.
Mary slid from the chair and went to him.
He lifted her automatically into his lap.
Elena continued.
“Weston, I’m sorry.”
That was all it took.
The most feared man Holly had ever met lowered his head.
Not enough to hide.
Enough to survive.
“I should have told you months ago. I kept telling myself I was protecting you from a war with your own family. The truth is, I didn’t know who to trust.”
The recording hissed.
“I found payments linking Arthur’s bloodstock operation to Victor Kline. Your father appears to have entered the business believing it was legitimate. At some point it stopped being legitimate, and instead of leaving, he profited.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“I believe Rafe managed the criminal side.”
Tristan whispered, “Jesus.”
“Rossi handled transportation, illegal events and enforcement. Kline handled animals and buyers.”
Elena paused.
“There is another account.”
Weston opened his eyes.
“A Hargrove account still active after Arthur died. I thought it belonged to Rafe. I’m no longer certain.”
Holly looked at the ledger.
Elena’s voice grew quieter.
“Someone inside this family is still paying Rossi.”
Tristan’s gaze moved toward his brother.
Not suspicion.
Fear.
The recording continued.
“I tried to contact the only witness who survived Kline without being bought, killed or imprisoned. Holly Bennett. She disappeared after testifying. I found fragments of her trail in Seattle, then nothing.”
Holly felt Mary look at her.
“If Holly is alive, she knows more than she thinks she knows.”
Holly frowned.
“What does that mean?”
No 1 answered.
Elena did.
“The night Kline’s facility burned, security cameras captured a young woman entering the office corridor. She remained inside for 7 minutes before releasing the horses. Investigators assumed she was searching for keys. I don’t think she was.”
Holly’s heart began pounding.
Memory came in pieces.
Smoke.
Alarms.
A door.
Victor shouting.
A man in a dark coat.
A voice behind another door.
She gripped the desk.
Weston noticed.
“Holly?”
She shook her head.
“Keep playing it.”
Elena continued.
“The footage was damaged, but audio survived. Holly heard something. I need to know what.”
Holly stared at the recorder.
7 years ago.
She had told investigators everything she remembered.
Hadn’t she?
The fire had begun near the west storage room after an electrical short.
Or that was what investigators concluded.
Holly remembered cutting ropes.
Breaking padlocks.
Horses screaming.
Pearl refusing to leave until Holly covered her blinded face with a blanket.
A foal trapped in Stall 23.
Midnight.
Then a memory surfaced.
A man shouting in Kline’s office.
Not Victor.
Another man.
“You don’t move the books until Rossi clears the harbor.”
Holly’s breath caught.
Tristan saw it.
“You remember.”
She did not answer.
Elena’s recording continued.
“I found Holly’s original witness transcript. There are 4 missing pages.”
Holly stared at Evelyn.
The old woman looked equally startled.
“The federal archive shows pages 18 through 21 removed after submission. Whoever removed them had access inside the investigation.”
Weston’s hand tightened around Mary.
“Rafe.”
“Possibly,” Elena’s recorded voice said, almost answering him across time.
“But this family has survived too long by confusing possibility with proof.”
Tristan gave a bitter laugh.
“She really knew us.”
Elena breathed softly near the microphone.
“Weston, if Holly ever enters your life, do not frighten her away.”
Everyone looked at Holly.
Even Mary.
Weston’s expression became unreadable.
Elena went on.
“She has spent years being punished for surviving other people’s crimes. Do not make survival another accusation.”
Holly looked away.
The next words were for Mary.
“My little mouse, if you’re old enough to understand this someday, I need you to know something. Your father loved me imperfectly. I loved him the same way. That is how real love usually works.”
Mary buried her face against Weston’s chest.
His hand covered the back of her head.
“And Weston?”
The recording crackled.
“If I’m gone, live.”
His jaw clenched.
“Not survive. Live. There is a difference.”
The file ended.
No one moved.
Outside the hidden office, the mansion remained full of armed men.
Inside, Weston Hargrove sat beneath 3 years of grief and looked almost defenseless.
Mary whispered, “Play Mommy again.”
Weston’s throat worked.
“Tomorrow.”
“Please.”
“Tomorrow, mouse.”
Mary did not argue.
She simply rested against him.
Holly walked to the covered window.
She needed space.
Instead she found another clue.
The curtain had been pinned closed with a brass tack.
Behind it, scratched into the wooden frame, were 4 numbers.
11-4-23-7.
“Holly?”
She touched them.
“Come here.”
Tristan came first.
“Combination?”
“Maybe.”
Weston joined them with Mary still in his arms.
Evelyn looked at the numbers.
“Date?”
“No,” Holly said.
She returned to the ledger.
Kline’s codes.
11 meant acquisition.
4 could mean juvenile stock.
Stall 23.
Her pulse accelerated.
Midnight had been in Stall 23.
The night of the fire.
“What is 7?” Tristan asked.
Holly went pale.
“Age.”
“Whose?”
She looked at him.
“Mine.”
Silence.
“I started working for Kline when I was 13, but I first saw his property when I was 7. My mother cleaned the main house for 2 months.”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“Ruth Bennett?”
Holly stared.
“You knew her name.”
Evelyn sat down slowly.
“Your mother worked for Arthur.”
The room disappeared.
Holly heard Weston say her name.
She barely understood him.
“My mother never said that.”
“She wouldn’t.”
Evelyn looked shaken now.
“Ruth found financial records in Arthur’s study. She came to me.”
“What records?”
“The first payments to Kline.”
Holly stepped backward.
“My mother knew?”
“She suspected.”
“And you let her go back there?”
“I gave her money and told her to leave Oregon.”
“You gave her money.”
“Yes.”
Holly laughed, breathless and furious.
“She spent the next 20 years terrified every time a car slowed outside our house, and you gave her money?”
“I was trying to keep her alive.”
“You people always call money protection.”
“Holly,” Weston said quietly.
She turned on him.
“No.”
He stopped.
She looked at all 3 Hargroves.
“My mother died thinking she had failed me.”
Evelyn’s voice softened.
“She saved you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because Arthur wanted both of you found.”
Holly froze.
Evelyn stood.
“I lied to him. I said Ruth had gone to Canada. I paid a woman there to use her name at a clinic. Arthur sent men north. Your mother went south.”
Holly’s eyes burned.
“Why?”
Evelyn looked toward the old photograph.
“Because by then I knew what my husband was.”
The telephone rang again.
This time Weston took out his phone.
A guard’s voice came through.
“Sir, the house line is receiving repeated calls from Mr. Rafe Hargrove.”
Everyone looked at the photograph.
Weston’s expression became stone.
“What does he want?”
“He says he heard about the attack. He’s at the north gate.”
Tristan went still.
“He’s here?”
“Yes, sir.”
Weston looked at Holly.
Then at his mother.
Then at Elena’s recorder.
“Do not let him inside.”
A pause.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“He’s already through the first gate.”
Weston’s face changed.
“How?”
The guard answered.
“He used your mother’s authorization code.”
Everyone turned toward Evelyn.
Her face went white.
“I never gave him that code.”
A sound came from the hidden office door.
Small.
Metallic.
Click.
Weston’s pistol appeared in his hand.
The bookcase began closing.
Tristan lunged toward it.
Too late.
The hidden panel sealed.
Mary gasped.
Weston reached for the release mechanism.
Nothing.
The room’s lights died.
Then the speaker built into Elena’s computer switched on.
A man’s familiar, amused voice filled the darkness.
“Welcome home, nephews.”
Tristan stopped breathing.
Weston raised his gun toward a ceiling speaker he could not shoot without risking ricochet.
May you like
Rafe laughed softly.
“You really should have poisoned me when you had the chance.”
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