Chapter 8 - The Intruders in the Night“Stay here,” I whispered, motioning for Mark to remain seated while I quietly slid a heavy, solid-brass pepper mill off the counter into my hand.
Mark stood up anyway, his protective instincts surging back to life. We crept out of the kitchen, hugging the shadows of the living room wall.
The front door—the heavy oak door Vanessa had stormed out of hours earlier—was standing slightly ajar. A cold autumn breeze was blowing through the entryway, rustling the decorative curtains.
Someone had just unlocked it.
We rushed toward the foyer. Lying right on the welcome mat inside the door was a heavy leather briefcase. Poking out of the unzipped pocket was a stack of legal documents and a set of master skeleton keys designed for high-security commercial locks.
“She came back,” Mark breathed, his face flushing with anger. “She left her keys or she had a duplicate.”
“No,” I said, inspecting the briefcase closely. “Look at the documents inside.”
Mark reached down, pulled out the topmost paper under the porch light, and read the heading. It wasn't a divorce filing or a property settlement. It was a corporate deed transfer application—signed by Vanessa Vance—transferring the entire title of the Texas estate to an offshore shell company linked to her uncle Arthur.
And attached to the deed was a second document: a structural contractor’s estimate for “sub-floor access excavation and vault retrieval.”
She wasn't just coming back to pack her clothes. She was coming back to dig up whatever was hidden beneath the living room floor before Mark or I could discover it.
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“We have to wake Lily and get out of this house right now,” Mark said, panic finally overriding his shock.
“No,” I said, my jaw setting into a hard, unyielding line. “We stay. And we find out what she’s been hiding.”
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