Chapter 8 - Behind the Fireplace
At five-thirty on Christmas Eve morning, Malcolm and Isaiah stood in the upstairs bedroom with a flashlight and the original renovation plans. Mrs. Bell stayed downstairs with Naomi, who was decorating paper snowflakes at the kitchen table. Adrian had asked the contractor to pause the job until ownership and access were verified.
Isaiah removed a narrow wooden trim panel beside the fireplace. Behind it was a steel compartment, larger than the one beneath the foyer. Tasha had hidden a combination lock beneath a brass sunflower ornament. Malcolm remembered buying that ornament for her on their first Christmas together.
“What number?” Isaiah asked.
Malcolm tried their wedding date. Nothing. Naomi's birthday. Nothing. Then he remembered the day Tasha had opened the foundation, the date she'd called their second wedding because it was the day they promised to build something beyond themselves.
The lock clicked.
Inside were bank statements, a sealed letter addressed to Naomi, and a small digital recorder. There was also a photograph of Camille standing with Darius and a third man beside a white freight truck. A company logo was visible on the door.
Adrian photographed the evidence before anyone moved it. The truck company had dissolved after Tasha's death. The third man was listed in an old police report as a witness to the collision, not a driver.
Malcolm's hands shook as he opened the letter addressed to him.
If I cannot tell you this myself, Tasha wrote, please don't let the money become the whole story. The money matters because families needed it. But Naomi matters more. I know you believe being a good father means building something she can inherit. She needs you at breakfast. She needs you when she's scared. Please come home before you miss the child standing right in front of you.
Malcolm sat on the edge of the bed. He read the last sentence twice. Tasha had been trying to reach him long before Camille came into their lives.
Isaiah quietly took the recorder and pressed play.
Tasha's voice emerged through static. “I have copies of the April ninth meeting. Malcolm's signature was forged. Darius told me the money was a loan. Camille said she'd make me regret embarrassing her. I don't know if she means it. I don't know who else is involved.”
There was a pause, then another voice, low and unfamiliar.
“You need to stop asking about the truck.”
Malcolm looked at Isaiah. “This was before the crash.”
“Yes.”
They turned the recorder over. A sticker on the back showed a repair-shop address. Isaiah recognized it: Tasha had taken the recorder there after its microphone broke. The shop owner might have kept a backup or remembered the man speaking.
Before they could leave, Naomi called from downstairs. “Daddy? There's somebody at the gate.”
Malcolm looked out the window. Camille stood beyond the iron bars with two suitcases and a woman carrying a television camera. Darius was beside them, holding a folder.
“She's brought the press,” Adrian said.
Malcolm went downstairs but did not open the gate. Through the intercom Camille announced that her husband had unlawfully thrown her out and that she had come to see her stepdaughter for Christmas. The reporter began filming.
Naomi stood behind Mrs. Bell, clutching her paper snowflake. Her face had gone pale.
Malcolm stepped away from the intercom and knelt beside her. “You don't have to talk to anyone. You can stay inside with Mrs. Bell.”
“Will they make you leave?”
“No.”
Outside, Darius raised the folder toward the camera. “We have documents showing Mr. Bennett neglected his child!”
Adrian looked at Malcolm. “The petition.”
But the papers Darius waved were not the old draft. Ruth received a photograph from the reporter and called immediately.
May you like
“Malcolm,” she said, “someone filed an emergency petition this morning. It contains a statement supposedly signed by Naomi.”
Naomi couldn't even spell the legal word printed above her forged signature.
