Chapter 6 - Twenty-Eight Seconds.
They watched the video in the library.
Before Cole pressed play, Ethan asked every officer except Mara to leave the room.
"Why?"
Cole asked.
"Because if this contains what Daniel thought it contained, my family's attorneys will try to bury it before breakfast."
Cole regarded him carefully.
"You understand I can subpoena everyone who sees it."
"Good."
Ethan looked toward the portrait of Arthur above the fireplace.
"For once, I want too many witnesses."
Claire studied him.
That was a different Ethan from the man who had accepted silence seven years earlier.
Perhaps shame had finally become useful.
Cole positioned the laptop where no one could touch it accidentally.
Rosa stood near the doorway because her statement placed her inside the events shown on the memory card.
When Arthur's face appeared on screen, Rosa gripped the doorframe.
"That's the shirt he wore that night."
Ethan glanced back.
"You're sure?"
"Blue cuffs."
She pointed.
"He spilled coffee on one earlier in the kitchen."
The detail was ordinary enough to make the video more real.
Claire hated that.
Great crimes were easier to imagine in darkness.
The coffee stain meant Arthur had eaten, spoken to staff, and moved through a normal evening before pointing a gun at his son.
When Daniel appeared, Claire felt another shock.
He looked exactly as he had during their hotel meeting.
Same jacket.
Same tired eyes.
Same impatient movement of his left hand when he was angry.
She remembered him sliding a folder across the hotel table.
"If anything happens, don't trust the first story you hear."
Claire had laughed nervously.
"That sounds reassuring."
"I'm serious."
"Daniel, you're scaring me."
"Good."
He had leaned closer.
"Fear might make you careful."
At the time, Claire believed he meant corporate fraud.
Now she watched his father aim a weapon at him and realized Daniel had known the danger was personal.
She also realized he had still not told her enough to choose whether she wanted any part of it.
That anger mattered.
Daniel being alive did not erase the way he had used her as a safe place for evidence.
Claire had spent years carrying guilt for a game whose rules had been hidden from her.
As the twenty-eight seconds played, she promised herself that if Daniel truly returned, relief would not silence the questions he owed her.
Detective Cole connected the forensic laptop to a television that had once displayed Arthur Blackwood's business presentations.
Now his face filled the screen.
The recording was grainy and tilted, apparently captured from a hidden camera inside the old maintenance passage.
Arthur stood near the service entrance.
Daniel faced him with blood on the front of his shirt.
Mercer stood between them.
The timestamp matched the night Daniel supposedly died.
Claire's hands turned cold.
The video began with Daniel shouting.
"You can't keep her locked away forever."
Arthur raised the gun.
"Lower your voice."
"Mom knows everything."
"Your mother is sick."
"She's not sick."
"You don't understand what she's capable of."
Daniel laughed bitterly.
"I understand what you're capable of."
Mercer stepped forward.
"Daniel, get in the car."
"No."
Arthur pointed the gun at Daniel's chest.
"Get in the car."
Daniel stared at his father.
"If anything happens to me, Claire has the recording."
Claire flinched.
Ethan looked at her.
The video continued.
Arthur's face changed at her name.
"You involved Claire?"
"She doesn't know what it is."
"Where is it?"
Daniel smiled.
"Somewhere you'll never look."
Arthur moved closer.
"You have no idea what you've done."
Then the recording ended.
Twenty-eight seconds.
No explanation for the blood.
No proof of what happened after Daniel entered the car.
But enough to destroy the official story of his death.
Ethan stood with both hands on the back of a chair.
"My father threatened him with a gun."
Cole closed the laptop.
"It also establishes that Daniel was alive shortly before the staged accident."
Claire stared at the blank screen.
"And that Daniel thought I had another recording."
Ethan looked at her.
"Did you?"
"No."
She searched her memory.
Three days before Daniel disappeared, he had given Claire a brown envelope and asked her to put it somewhere safe.
She had assumed it contained copies of foundation statements.
Before she could open it, Eleanor had arrived at Claire's apartment the morning after Daniel's supposed death.
She brought the hotel photographs.
She told Claire that Ethan never wanted to see her again.
Claire had packed in a panic and left for New York.
The envelope had gone into one of six storage boxes that remained unopened for years.
Claire stood abruptly.
"I might have it."
Ethan turned.
"The recording?"
"An envelope Daniel gave me."
"Where?"
"My storage unit in New York."
Cole immediately objected.
"You're not driving anywhere tonight."
"Then send an officer."
"I can arrange for NYPD to secure the unit."
Claire shook her head.
"The facility won't open it without my authorization."
Ethan reached for his coat.
"I'll take her."
Cole stared at both of them.
"Someone pushed her off a balcony, attacked me, stole evidence, and escaped police custody tonight."
She pointed toward Claire.
"She does not leave without protection."
Ethan's voice was flat.
"Fine."
Cole assigned two officers and ordered them to travel in separate vehicles.
Before they left, Claire returned to the music room for the ledger.
The hiding place was empty.
She stared at the open floor compartment.
"Ethan."
He came in behind her.
"What?"
"The ledger is gone."
They searched the room.
Nothing.
Only three people knew it had been found.
Claire.
Ethan.
And whoever had been listening when they received Katherine's phone call.
Cole ordered another lockdown.
Rosa appeared in the hallway carrying coffee for an officer.
Claire suddenly remembered the text message in the hidden room.
ASK ROSA WHAT SHE SAW THE NIGHT DANIEL DIED.
Whoever sent it knew Rosa's secret.
Whoever sent it knew the structure of the house.
Whoever sent it may also have known about the music room.
Claire looked at Rosa.
"Did you come in here tonight?"
Rosa stopped.
"No."
"Did anyone ask you about this room?"
"No."
Ethan studied her.
"Rosa, where were you when the ledger disappeared?"
Her face changed.
"Are you accusing me?"
"I'm asking."
"I was helping Detective Cole's officers."
Claire softened her tone.
"We need the truth."
Rosa set the coffee tray down.
"Then maybe you should ask him for it."
She pointed at Ethan.
Ethan frowned.
"Me?"
Rosa's eyes filled with anger.
"You keep acting like you knew nothing."
"I didn't."
"Your father came to this house six months after Daniel disappeared."
"He lived here."
"Not with Daniel."
Ethan froze.
Claire turned toward him.
Rosa continued.
"I saw both of them in the old garage."
"That's impossible."
"I know what I saw."
"You said you never knew where he went."
Claire's voice was quiet now.
Ethan looked at her.
"I didn't."
Rosa shook her head.
"Daniel was standing beside you."
The accusation landed heavily.
Ethan's expression changed from confusion to recognition.
"Wait."
He closed his eyes briefly.
"Six months after the funeral, my father took me to the garage and showed me the dental report."
"Was Daniel there?"
"No."
"Rosa says he was."
"There was another man."
Claire's pulse quickened.
"Who?"
"A private security contractor my father used."
"Name?"
Ethan hesitated.
"Adrian Vale."
Rosa whispered.
"That was Daniel."
Ethan shook his head.
"No."
"I served your family for fifteen years."
"Rosa—"
"He looked at me and put a finger to his lips."
Claire stepped between them.
"Maybe Daniel was using another identity."
Ethan stared at the floor.
"Adrian Vale worked for my father for years after Daniel died."
The room went silent.
Claire felt a terrible possibility take shape.
If Adrian Vale had really been Daniel, then Ethan had crossed paths with his own brother repeatedly without knowing it.
Cole ordered an immediate search for Adrian Vale's personnel records.
The Blackwood corporate archive returned a photograph.
Ethan looked at it and swore.
The man in the photograph had short dark hair, a beard, and a scar beside his left eye.
He did not look much like the clean-shaven Daniel from seven years earlier.
But Rosa pointed at the screen.
"That's him."
Claire zoomed in.
Around Adrian's neck was a leather cord carrying a small silver ring.
She recognized it.
Daniel had worn the same ring on a chain since college.
Ethan sat down.
"My God."
Claire felt anger rise again.
"You worked beside him?"
"Not directly."
"How many times did you see him?"
"Maybe four."
"And you never knew?"
"He changed everything."
Claire looked toward the empty ledger compartment.
"Maybe he's the one who took it."
Cole's phone rang.
The search unit had found a hidden camera inside the music room.
It had been transmitting live.
The technician traced the signal to a parked vehicle outside the estate gates.
Police surrounded it.
The vehicle was empty.
Inside they found the missing ledger, Charles Mercer's coat, and a photograph of Claire's New York storage facility.
May you like
Written across the photograph in black marker were four words.
YOU'RE ALREADY TOO LATE.
