Chapter 11 - MARA'S SECOND SECRET
There was another ledger.
That was the only explanation.
Ortiz disagreed.
"Maybe Mara means something else."
"What?"
"I don't know."
I stared at the note.
Mara knew Rhea better than anyone.
If she risked leaving a message, every word mattered.
Perrin helped us understand.
When I returned to the safe house, he was sitting on the floor with Scout.
The police had finally released the stuffed dog after processing it.
I showed him a photograph of the blue ledger.
"Have you ever seen this?"
He nodded.
"Mommy's book."
"Did she have another one?"
He thought.
"A little one."
"What color?"
"Blue."
My heart jumped.
"Where did she keep it?"
"In her purse."
"Did Rhea know?"
Perrin shook his head.
"Mommy called it her pretend book."
I called Ortiz immediately.
Mara had created a decoy.
The large blue ledger contained real criminal evidence.
But apparently, there was a smaller book containing something Rhea considered even more dangerous.
We searched Mara's old belongings.
Most had been boxed after her funeral.
Rhea had encouraged me to donate them.
I suddenly understood why.
She had been searching everything.
One box remained in storage because I could never bring myself to open it.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
Old birthday cards.
Mara's college notebooks.
At the bottom was her purse from the week before the crash.
The lining had been cut open.
Empty.
Rhea had already searched it.
Then Perrin picked up a photograph.
It showed Mara holding him beside the old lake house.
He turned it over.
There was writing on the back.
Dandelions survive where roses don't.
I remembered the phrase.
Mara used to say it whenever something refused to grow in our formal gardens.
Roses needed attention.
Dandelions survived anywhere.
Our estate had an old stone garden behind the abandoned west wing.
My mother once planted roses there.
After she died, the garden became wild.
Mostly weeds.
Mostly dandelions.
Ortiz sent a team.
Beneath a cracked stone planter they discovered a sealed metal box.
Inside was a small blue notebook.
This one did not contain account numbers.
It contained dates.
Times.
Conversations.
Photographs printed from security footage.
Names of people who met my father privately.
Mara had built a complete map of the network.
But the final page was what terrified Ortiz.
Mara had written:
ARTHUR DID NOT CREATE THE NETWORK.
HE INHERITED IT.
W.V. REPORTS TO "THE DIRECTOR."
IDENTITY UNKNOWN.
RHEA IS AFRAID OF HIM.
Below that was a photograph.
Rhea stood outside a hotel beside an older man whose face was partly hidden.
On his wrist was a distinctive silver watch.
I recognized it.
I had seen the same watch at company board meetings.
"That's Warren Bell."
Ortiz looked at me.
"Who?"
"Our family attorney."
The man who drafted my trust.
The man who handled Mara's estate after her supposed death.
The man who had prepared the documents giving Rhea control of Perrin's inheritance.
Ortiz reached for her phone.
Before she could call anyone, her device rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed immediately.
"What happened?"
She listened.
May you like
Then looked at me.
"Warren Bell disappeared from his office twenty minutes ago."
