Chapter 6 - The Note That Shouldn't Exist|
I read the note until the words blurred.
My father had been dead for two years. I had watched them lower his coffin into the ground. I had stood beside Maureen while strangers offered condolences, and I had spent the following months learning how to run a café with one hand while trying to keep grief from swallowing me with the other.
Yet someone had written a message in his handwriting and placed it on my pillow.
The date at the bottom was unmistakable.
November 14.
The day he died.
I carried the note downstairs and found Adrian standing near the counter, speaking quietly with a woman in a navy suit.
She had short brown hair, a leather briefcase, and the composed expression of someone who rarely allowed emotion to interfere with evidence.
“This is Evelyn Price,” Adrian said. “She's the attorney I mentioned.”
Evelyn extended her hand.
“Nora, I'm sorry we have to meet under these circumstances.”
I gave her the note.
She read it once, then again.
“Where did you find this?”
“On my pillow. Someone entered my room.”
“Who has a key?”
“Maureen. Chelsea. The cleaning staff. And me.”
“Has anyone threatened you recently?”
I looked at Adrian.
“Besides the usual threats about losing my home?”
Evelyn's expression hardened.
“Tell me everything.”
So I did.
I told her about the documents, the money transfers, the missing photograph, and the note hidden in my father's recipe book. I told her about the way Maureen controlled the register and how she had made me believe I had no rights to the café.
When I finished, Evelyn opened her briefcase.
“Your father left a will,” she said.
I stared at her.
“What?”
“A valid will, signed and witnessed six months before his death. It wasn't included in the documents filed after he died.”
“Why not?”
“Because the copy submitted to the probate court was incomplete. The pages concerning the property were missing.”
My knees weakened.
“Can you prove that?”
“I can prove that a copy existed. I'm still verifying the original.”
She placed a photocopy on the counter.
My father's signature appeared at the bottom of the first page.
It looked exactly as I remembered it, including the long, sweeping tail on the Q.
The will left me the café, the apartment above it, and the majority of his personal savings. Maureen was named as temporary administrator, with explicit instructions to preserve the property until the estate was settled.
There was also a paragraph about the café's business records.
Any financial discrepancy discovered after my death must be reviewed by an independent accountant, Daniel Mercer, who has maintained my records for eleven years.
I felt sick.
“Maureen knew about this.”
Evelyn nodded.
“That's our working theory.”
“Then why is the original missing?”
“Because someone may have had a reason to destroy it.”
Adrian had been silent throughout the conversation. Now he leaned forward.
“There's another problem. Daniel's name appears in a financial report connected to my company. The report was altered after he disappeared.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You didn't mention that earlier.”
“I didn't have confirmation.”
“And now?”
“Now I have a reason to believe the same person who altered the report may have arranged the transfers from Larkspur.”
I looked between them.
“So my father's death, the missing will, and your stolen money might all be connected?”
“Possibly,” Evelyn said. “But we need evidence, not assumptions.”
She took the note and placed it inside a clear document sleeve.
“Don't touch anything else that appears in your room. If someone leaves another message, call me immediately.”
After she departed, Adrian stayed behind.
“Do you feel safe here?”
I almost laughed.
“This is the only home I've had since my mother died.”
“That wasn't my question.”
I looked at the stairs.
“No.”
He nodded once.
“There's a guest suite at my residence. You can stay there while Evelyn investigates.”
“I don't want to owe you anything.”
“You won't.”
“People always say that before they present the bill.”
He considered my answer.
“Then let me make the arrangement clear. I'll pay for a room at a hotel under your name. You choose where you go, and no one from my organization will enter without your permission.”
It was the first offer of help that didn't sound like a command.
“I'll think about it.”
“Good.”
He started toward the door.
“Adrian?”
He turned.
“Why do you care about my father's café?”
His expression changed.
“Because he helped me when I was twenty-two and had no one I trusted.”
“How?”
Adrian looked toward the old espresso machine.
“He gave me a place to sit when my father was dying. He didn't ask what my last name was. He just poured coffee and let me be a person for an hour.”
Then he left.
I stood alone in the café, trying to reconcile the dangerous man everyone feared with the memory he had just shared.
At closing time, I returned upstairs.
The photograph was still missing.
But beneath the mattress, I found something else: a small brass key taped to a folded receipt.
On the receipt, my father had written three words.
May you like
For the blue ledger.
And on the reverse side was an address for a storage facility outside Chicago.
