As I opened the cover, a small folded piece of paper fell out onto my lap.

It was a handwritten note in my mother’s elegant, sloping script.

My eyes scanned the first line.

*My dearest Claire, if you are reading this, then Mark has done what I always feared he would.*

I felt a cold chill run down my spine.

Thomas Bell stepped into the room behind me, his shadow falling across the desk.

“Claire?” he asked. “What is it?”

Before I could answer, the front door of the house creaked open again.

I heard heavy footsteps in the foyer, followed by Patricia’s sharp gasp.

“You can’t be in here,” Sheriff Miller’s voice echoed from the hall.

A man’s voice, low and unfamiliar, answered him.

“I am here on behalf of the bank, Sheriff,” the man said. “We have a foreclosure order for the Hartwell estate.”

I stood up, holding my mother’s note tightly in my fist.

I walked to the library door and looked out into the foyer.

A man in a dark gray suit was standing near the door, holding a black leather folder.