Chapter 3 - The Sketchbook’s Secret
By 8:00 AM, the rain had stopped, leaving Greystone Manor surrounded by a heavy, gray mist that rose from the wet gravel like steam from a cooling engine. Logan sat at the long mahogany table in the dining room, the leather sketchbook open under the light of a single brass lamp. He had spent four hours analyzing every line, every stroke of pencil, looking for the one thing his sister would have hidden for him if she knew he would eventually find it.
Elena had been a brilliant artist, but her brilliance hadn't just been in her eye; it had been in her structure. She had studied architectural drafting before their father dragged her into the family’s social circle, and she had a habit of using specific ratios to hide text within her landscapes.
He found it on page twenty-four.
It was the drawing of the blue house in Rosewood—the home where she had spent her final years as a ghost. At first glance, the lines of the siding looked uniform, but as Logan leaned closer with a magnifying glass he had found in his father’s old desk, he saw the tiny, microscopic variations in the shading.
Numbers.
A sequence of coordinates and dates, written in the cross-hatching of the porch shadows.
"Marcus," Logan said into his headset, never breaking eye contact with the page. "Get your notepad."
"I'm here, Boss," Marcus’s voice came through, clear and crisp from the lower level of the house where he was setting up a secondary communications array. "What did you find?"
"She left a safety deposit reference," Logan said, his finger tracing the tiny numbers. "Bank of New York, branch code 412. Account number 99-Delta-Echo. It was opened in October of the year she disappeared. That’s two weeks after the crash, Marcus. She didn't just survive the river; she had help. Someone provided her with a new identity and enough capital to open a secured trust before she even reached Rosewood."
"Who had that kind of access back then?" Marcus asked. "The family accounts were locked down tightly after your father’s passing. Only you and Vincent had the authority to clear a blind trust without a full board review."
"It wasn't me," Logan said, a cold certainty settling into his stomach. "And it wasn't Vincent. If Vincent wanted her dead, he wouldn't have built her a safety net first. He would have finished it at the river. Someone else was playing a double game, Marcus. Someone who wanted Elena off the board but didn't want her blood on their conscience."
The dining room door opened with a soft click, and Nova walked in, her small bare feet padding softly against the rug. She was still wearing Logan’s black overcoat, the hem trailing behind her like a royal train, her single-eared rabbit tucked firmly under her arm.
"Luna’s sick," she said simply, her gray-green eyes looking up at him without fear, only the blunt, honest clarity of a child who had lived through too many bad mornings. "Her hands are hot, and she won't wake up for her cereal."
Logan rose from the table so fast his chair groaned against the hardwood. He strode into the study, Nova rushing to keep up with his long strides.
Luna was lying on the sheet-covered sofa, her cheeks flushed a bright, dangerous crimson, her small chest rising and falling with a fast, shallow rhythm. When Logan pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, the heat was immediate—a burning, dry fever that made his own pulse spike with a sudden, instinctual panic.
"Marcus!" Logan shouted, his voice echoing through the empty halls of Greystone with a force that brought his security chief through the door in less than three seconds. "Get the car ready. We’re going to the regional hospital in Poughkeepsie."
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"Boss, that’s out of our territory," Marcus said, his eyes scanning the feverish child. "The Poughkeepsie clinic is monitored by the local county sheriff, and half of his deputies take Christmas bonuses from the Kane family. If we show up with two undocumented kids who look like Elena Marchetti—"
"I don't give a damn about the Kanes, and I don't give a damn about the sheriff," Logan roared, lifting Luna gently into his arms, wrapping her securely in the heavy wool overcoat. "She’s burning up, Marcus. My sister’s child is not going to die in this house because we’re hiding from Vincent’s accountants. Move the cars. Now."
