Chapter 5 - The Locked Safe in the Attic
The party was effectively over, but the night was far from finished.
The guests had quietly gathered their coats and departed within minutes of the detective's revelations, leaving only Mark, Thomas, Detective Miller, and me inside the tense house.
Patricia sat slumped in her chair, broken and defeated, while Thomas stood by the window staring out into the dark night.
"There is still one more piece of the puzzle we need to secure," Detective Miller said, breaking the heavy silence.
Mark looked up from the table. "What else could there possibly be?"
"The financial records," Detective Miller replied, tapping the manila folder. "Patricia didn't just steal Eleanor's child. She stole millions of dollars in real estate and trust funds that legally belonged to Eleanor and, by extension, to you."
"Where are those documents?" Mark asked.
"They are locked inside the safe in the upstairs attic," I answered, having found the hidden blueprint during my research into the family's property holdings.
Mark didn't hesitate for a single second.
He turned around and marched out of the dining room, his heavy footsteps echoing up the staircase.
Detective Miller and I followed closely behind him, leaving Patricia alone at the table with her overwhelming guilt.
The upstairs hallway was dark and filled with the familiar scent of old dust and forgotten memories.
Mark walked straight to the far corner of the hallway, pushing aside a heavy decorative tapestry that hung over a discreet wall panel.
Behind the tapestry was a heavy digital keypad safe built directly into the structural brickwork.
"Do you know the combination?" Detective Miller asked.
"I do," Mark muttered grimly.
He punched in a six-digit sequence using Eleanor's birthday, a date Patricia had bitterly used as the master code for decades out of some twisted sense of psychological dominance.
With a soft mechanical click, the heavy steel door swung wide open.
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Inside sat stacks of old bank statements, offshore account numbers, and original property deeds bearing Eleanor's true signature.
Nestled right in the center of the safe was a small, velvet-lined wooden box.
