Lydia remained in the hallway, looking closely at the papers she had pulled from the envelope.

“There is one more thing in Warren’s deposition,” Lydia said, her voice dropping to a whisper.

I walked back into the hall, my boots squeaking on the damp floorboards.

“What is it?” I asked, noticing the way her brow furrowed.

She held up a separate sheet of paper, a copy of an old surveyor’s map.

“Warren didn’t just forge the deeds for Marcus,” she said.

“He confessed to hiding the original charter from 1782.”

“The one that defines the true boundaries of the estate,” I said.

“Yes,” Lydia said, her eyes fixed on the map. “But look at the north ridge section.”

I leaned in close under the dim, yellow light of the chandelier.

There was a red ink circle drawn over the area behind the old family vault.

A hand-written note in the margin, dated forty years ago, caught my eye.

The phone in my hand vibrated again, a text message from an unknown number.

I looked down at the screen.

The text was short.