Chapter 6 - THE RED COAT
Thomas’s head rolled to the side as he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Marcus stared at the small brass key in his palm, the cold metal biting into his skin. Clara’s red coat. He remembered it vividly. It was a beautiful, crimson wool trench coat Clara had worn the winter before she died. After her passing, Marcus couldn't bear to throw it away, nor could he look at it. He had locked it away in the cedar closet in the attic, keeping the key hidden in his study.
Somehow, Thomas had retrieved the key. Somehow, Thomas knew that whatever Clara had hidden before her death—the hard drive mentioned in her letter—was inside that coat.
“Mr. Sterling,” Grace whispered frantically, keeping the flashlight beam pointed at the floor so it wouldn't reflect off the windows. “We need to leave. We need to get to the garage now!”
“We can’t,” Marcus whispered back, his jaw set in a hard line. “If Natalie takes full control of the servers, she can lock the garage doors permanently. We’ll be trapped like rats. The only evidence that can put her away for good is in the attic. If she finds it first and destroys it, everything Clara died for is gone. Oliver’s future is gone.”
Grace looked at her little girl, shivering in her arms, and then at Oliver, who was clinging to his father’s leg. The instinct to run was overwhelming, but Grace knew what it was like to be powerless against people like Natalie. If they ran now without the evidence, Natalie would use her wealth and influence to ruin them. She would frame Grace for the cake, she would take Marcus’s company, and she would never stop hunting Oliver.
Grace’s fear suddenly solidified into a fierce, protective anger.
“Then we go to the attic,” Grace said, her voice steadying. She shifted Emma onto her hip. “Lead the way.”
Marcus looked at her with a profound sense of gratitude. He nodded, took the flashlight back, and guided them away from the grand staircase, moving toward the hidden servants' stairs in the back of the house.
The air grew colder as they climbed the narrow, winding wooden steps. The oppressive silence of the mansion was deafening, broken only by the soft padding of their footsteps and the distant, howling wind outside.
When they reached the attic door, Marcus inserted the small brass key into the antique lock. It turned with a sharp click.
He pushed the door open. The smell of cedar, dust, and old lavender perfume rushed out to meet them.
The attic was vast, filled with velvet-draped furniture, old trunks, and memories of a life before the tragedy. Marcus moved the flashlight beam across the room until it landed on a large, standalone cedar wardrobe in the far corner.
“There,” Marcus whispered.
He hurried over and pulled the heavy doors open. Inside, hanging alone among mothballs and plastic garment bags, was the crimson wool coat. Even in the dim light, it looked vibrant, a ghost of the vibrant woman who once wore it.
Marcus reached into the deep pockets. Empty. He checked the breast pocket. Empty.
Panic fluttered in his chest. “Thomas said it was here. Clara’s letter said she hid a hard drive.”
“Let me look,” Grace said gently. She set Emma down, instructing the children to stay behind a large steamer trunk.
Grace stepped up to the coat. As a cleaner, she knew how people hid things. She didn't look in the pockets. She ran her hands down the thick lining of the coat, feeling the seams. About halfway down the left side, her fingers caught on a stiff, rectangular shape completely sewn into the hem.
“Here,” Grace whispered. “It’s sewn inside the lining.”
Marcus pulled a pocket knife from his trousers and carefully sliced the red thread. He reached into the tear and pulled out a small, silver external hard drive.
A wave of immense relief washed over him. He had it. The proof. The company audits, the offshore accounts, the truth about Clara’s murder.
“We have it,” Marcus breathed, holding it up. “Now we get to the garage.”
Suddenly, the attic was flooded with blinding, piercing light.
Grace screamed, throwing her arm up to shield her eyes. Marcus spun around, dropping his pocket knife but holding tightly to the hard drive.
Standing in the doorway of the attic, holding a high-powered tactical flashlight in one hand and a heavy, solid-brass fireplace poker in the other, was Natalie.
Her red silk dress from the party was torn at the hem. Her perfect hair was wild, and her eyes burned with the frantic, unhinged desperation of a cornered predator.
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“You always were too smart for your own good, Clara,” Natalie sneered, addressing the coat as if her dead rival were still wearing it. She turned the blinding light onto Marcus.
“Hand it over, Marcus,” Natalie demanded, stepping into the room. She tapped the heavy brass poker against a wooden trunk, the sound echoing like a gunshot. “Hand over the drive, and the cleaner and her brat get to walk out of here alive.”
