Chapter 9 - Going Home
The Mercer house looked smaller when Noah returned.
For almost a year, it had existed in his mind as a maze of locked doors and whispered threats.
Now it was simply a large stone house beside the lake.
Detective Chen walked in first.
Aisha followed.
Lena remained close to Noah.
Celeste was prohibited from being present.
Noah still expected to see her at the top of the stairs.
“You okay?” Lena asked.
“No.”
“Want to leave?”
“No.”
That answer mattered.
Noah was afraid.
He went in anyway.
Adam’s encrypted file contained one clue:
RED — behind what Julia hated, where Noah always won.
Nobody understood it.
Noah did.
He led them upstairs.
His father had loved chess.
His mother hated the enormous decorative chessboard mounted in the game room because she called it “the ugliest thing a rich man has ever bought.”
Noah had beaten Adam there for the first time when he was eight.
“Dad let me win.”
Lena raised an eyebrow.
“No, he didn’t.”
“He said he did.”
“Adam was a terrible liar when he lost games.”
For a second, the house felt almost alive again.
Detective Chen examined the wooden chessboard.
It was bolted to the wall.
Behind the black king was a concealed latch.
The panel opened.
Empty.
Noah’s stomach dropped.
“No.”
Dust outlined the place where something rectangular had once rested.
The red notebook was gone.
Chen photographed everything.
“Could Celeste have found it?”
“No,” Noah said.
Then corrected himself.
“I don’t know.”
They searched nearby.
Nothing.
Noah’s frustration became rage.
“She always gets there first.”
Aisha crouched beside him.
“We found the hiding place. That proves Adam’s clue was real.”
“But not the notebook.”
“Not yet.”
Noah kicked the baseboard.
Pain shot through his arm from the motion.
Lena caught his shoulder.
“Careful.”
“I’m sick of careful!”
The words echoed.
Nobody scolded him.
That made him angrier.
He left the game room and marched toward his old bedroom.
Most of his belongings were gone.
Celeste had converted the room into something she called “age appropriate.”
Gray bedding.
Minimal furniture.
No toys on shelves.
No photographs.
His compass collection missing.
Noah opened drawers.
Empty.
He yanked open the closet.
Boxes remained on the top shelf.
One was labeled WINTER CLOTHES.
Another SCHOOL.
He pulled the SCHOOL box down.
Inside were old notebooks, trophies, papers, drawings.
He threw them aside.
“Whatever you’re looking for,” Lena said, “tell us.”
“I don’t know.”
That was true.
Then he saw his third-grade science notebook.
Inside the back cover was a small red smear.
Ink.
His memory shifted.
The night Celeste slammed the desk drawer on his wrist, she had taken the red notebook.
She carried it upstairs.
Noah followed.
She went into his bedroom.
Why?
He had assumed she was looking for the brass key.
But he had not found the key yet.
That happened weeks later.
So why had she entered his room?
Noah looked at the boxes.
“She hid it in my stuff.”
Chen turned.
“What?”
“So if someone found it, she could say it was mine.”
That was a theory.
Not proof.
But they searched every box.
Nothing.
Then Lena noticed something behind the dresser.
A torn strip of red leather.
Detective Chen bagged it.
No notebook.
Noah sat on the floor.
“She destroyed it.”
“Maybe,” Chen said.
“Then we’ll never know what was in it.”
“We already have substantial evidence from the drive.”
“But Dad hid that one.”
Chen understood.
The notebook mattered emotionally as much as legally.
It was the last thing Adam had tried to protect before he died.
They continued.
At the bottom of a toy chest, Noah found something else.
An old smartphone.
The cracked blue case belonged to his mother.
He recognized it instantly.
“Mom’s phone.”
Lena inhaled sharply.
Julia’s personal phone had supposedly been destroyed in the crash.
This could not be that device.
Noah turned it over.
“It’s her old one.”
Two years earlier Julia had replaced it after the battery began failing.
Celeste must have boxed it accidentally.
The phone was dead.
Chen bagged it.
“Could be nothing.”
Noah nodded.
He had learned not to turn hope into certainty.
As they left, he stopped at the front door.
The height marks his mother had penciled onto the frame remained.
Celeste had painted over almost everything Julia left behind.
But not those.
Noah touched the mark labeled age eight.
He remembered standing straight while Julia accused him of cheating by lifting his heels.
Lena watched quietly.
“You can take a picture.”
Noah did.
He didn’t take anything else.
Outside, Aisha received a call.
The probate judge had reviewed the newer will and preliminary handwriting analysis.
Celeste’s challenge had weakened.
But she had filed a new petition.
She was no longer asking to retain guardianship.
She was demanding that Lena Morales be disqualified.
Her claim was simple.
Lena had a financial motive.
Adam’s newer will left her a substantial bequest.
Two million dollars.
Noah stared at Lena.
“You didn’t tell me.”
Lena looked genuinely shocked.
“I didn’t know.”
Aisha studied her face.
Neither did she.
But Celeste did.
May you like
Which meant Celeste knew far more about the newer will than she had admitted.
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