“Clara…”
Dad’s voice came through the little recorder so softly that, for one impossible second, none of us moved.
The kitchen seemed to shrink around that sound.
Mason stood beside the table with the agreement he had brought for me to sign.
Brooke was close enough to the open wall panel that she could have touched the steel box inside.
Her hand actually started toward it.
Then Dad spoke again.
“If Mason and Brooke are standing there, tell them to keep their hands off the box until Whitaker arrives.”
Brooke jerked her hand back.
Mason went white.
I stared at the recorder.
There was a soft click, then the tape continued.
“I know my children,” Dad said.
“And I know curiosity runs faster than patience in two of them.”
Mason recovered first.
“This is ridiculous.”
He reached past me toward the compartment.
I stepped between him and the wall.
“Don’t.”
“It’s Dad’s property.”
“It was Dad’s property.”
Brooke’s eyes flicked toward the deed folder on the counter.
All items contained within the structure.
She had heard the same sentence I had.
That was when I understood why those words had been so strangely specific.
Mason understood it a second later.
His expression hardened.
“We’re not doing this,” he said.
“Whatever is in there belongs to the estate until somebody proves otherwise.”
I picked up my phone.
“Good idea.”
I called Mr.
Whitaker.
He answered on the fourth ring.
When I told him the kitchen wall was open, there was a long silence.
Then he asked one question.
“Did anyone touch the steel box?”
“No.”
“Keep it that way.”
Mason laughed sharply.
“Of course the lawyer knows.”
Mr.
Whitaker apparently heard him through the phone.
His voice became firmer.
“Mason, I suggest you listen to your sister for once.”
Twenty-five minutes later, headlights came slowly up the gravel drive.
Mr.
Whitaker entered carrying a leather document case beneath one arm.
Rain had started again, silvering the shoulders of his dark coat.
He looked at the open wall, the recorder, and the untouched steel box.
Then he nodded.
“Your father hoped Clara would find this alone,” he said, “but he prepared for the possibility that she wouldn’t.”
Brooke folded her arms.
“What is it?”
Mr.
Whitaker looked at me.
