Chapter 17 - The Brass Key
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Inside the dark wall compartment sat a single, fireproof metal box covered in a thin layer of dust.
Detective Hale reached in, carefully lifted the box out, and placed it onto the wooden workbench.
“It’s not locked,” Hale noted, lifting the latch on the front of the box.
Inside lay a bundle of yellowed documents, several old black-and-white photographs, a cassette tape, and a stack of handwritten letters tied together with a faded green ribbon.
Sarah put on rubber gloves and carefully lifted the first letter.
“Look at the date,” Sarah whispered, her eyes widening. “October 14th, 1995.”
Thirty-one years ago.
I looked at the black-and-white photograph resting on top of the letters. It showed my father, Daniel Mercer, standing in front of the very house on Hawthorne Lane when it was just a wooden frame under construction.
Standing right beside him, her arm wrapped intimately through his, was a young woman with sharp cheekbones and silver-blonde hair.
It was Evelyn Bennett.
I gasped, stumbling back a step. “She... she was with my father?”
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Sarah untied the green ribbon and unfolded the top letter. She read the contents silently, her jaw slowly dropping in absolute disbelief.
“Elena,” Sarah said, her voice shaking slightly. “Evelyn wasn't just your father's business partner. She was his first wife’s sister. And thirty-one years ago, she tried to steal this house from him using a forged land deed.”
