Chapter 3
The boathouse was cold and damp,
smelling of old salt,
decaying wood,
and buried secrets.
Daniel had insisted on coming with us,
despite his injuries,
limping heavily on his right leg as we walked down the path.
I carried a heavy iron crowbar,
while Mrs. Bell held a powerful flashlight,
cutting through the dusty gloom of the interior.
We stood over the loose floorboard,
the same one Grant had desperately torn open,
revealing the empty cavity beneath it.
"Grant was an amateur,"
Daniel muttered,
kneeling carefully on the wooden floor,
and running his fingers along the seams of the surrounding planks.
"He looked for the obvious hiding spot,"
Daniel explained,
"but Margaret Hawthorne was a brilliant woman,
and she would never leave the real prize so exposed."
I watched him work,
admiring his sharp instincts,
feeling grateful that he had returned to me.
"Look here,"
Daniel pointed,
indicating a small,
almost invisible notch carved into the baseboard near the wall.
He took a pocket knife from his jacket,
sliding the blade into the notch,
and pressed down with a sudden burst of force.
A quiet click echoed in the room,
and a completely different section of the floor shifted slightly,
popping upward by a fraction of an inch.
I stepped forward,
wedging the crowbar under the raised wood,
and pulled back with all my strength.
The heavy boards creaked in protest,
and then gave way completely,
revealing a dark,
metal lockbox covered in years of dust.
My breath caught in my throat,
and I dropped the crowbar,
reaching down to pull the heavy box out of the hidden compartment.
It was locked with a heavy brass padlock,
but the metal was old and rusted,
weakened by decades of salty ocean air.
Daniel took the crowbar,
bringing it down hard against the padlock,
shattering the rusted mechanism with a single,
deafening blow.
I pulled the lid open,
my hands trembling uncontrollably,
and peered inside the dark interior.
There were no diamonds,
no gold bars,
no stacks of money waiting for us.
Instead,
there were ledgers,
dozens of black leather books,
filled with neat,
handwritten numbers and names.
"What is this?"
I asked,
pulling the top ledger out,
and flipping through the fragile pages.
Mrs. Bell leaned closer,
shining the flashlight onto the paper,
her eyes scanning the columns of dates and figures.
"These are offshore accounts,"
Daniel said,
his voice thick with disbelief,
"massive,
untraceable accounts."
"They belonged to Arthur and his brother,"
Mrs. Bell realized,
her face turning completely pale,
"this is the money they stole from the state,
the money that disappeared thirty years ago."
"And Margaret found it,"
I whispered,
putting the pieces of the puzzle together in my mind.
"She didn't just hide you from them,"
Daniel said,
looking up at me with profound respect,
"she took their entire fortune,
and buried it right under their noses."
Arthur did not want the house,
he did not care about the foundation,
he only wanted his stolen empire back.
And now,
I was holding it in my hands,
the ultimate weapon against the man who had terrified my birth mother.
"He is never getting this back,"
I declared,
May you like
closing the ledger with a sharp,
decisive snap.
