Chapter 6 - THE LAKE HOUSE IN THE WOODS
The cold night air burned my lungs as I sprinted through the shadows of the suburban neighborhood.
I didn't dare call the police from my cell phone. If Mr. Harrison was truly in league with David and had corrupted parts of the local legal network, pinging my location to dispatchers could alert him directly.
I needed to get to someone I could trust.
Or rather, someone who had her own score to settle.
Eleanor Whitmore.
Ten blocks away, nestled in a quiet, gated senior community, was Eleanor’s private estate. It was the only place Mr. Harrison wouldn't think to look for me, and the only person who possessed the missing pieces of this thirty-year puzzle.
I reached her front gate twenty minutes later, out of breath, my hair tangled and my dress torn at the hem.
I pressed the call box beside the iron gate.
"Eleanor," I panted into the intercom. "It's Caroline. Let me in, please."
There was a brief crackle of static, and then the heavy iron gate buzzed open with a loud, mechanical click.
I pushed through, jogged up the cobblestone pathway, and hammered on her front door.
The door swung open almost immediately.
Eleanor stood there wearing a silk bathrobe, her silver hair loose around her shoulders, holding a landline phone in her hand. She looked at my disheveled appearance—the dirt on my face, the torn dress, the leather journal clutched tightly in my arms—and her expression instantly hardened.
"Get inside," she commanded, pulling me past her into the foyer and slamming the heavy oak door shut.
She locked all three deadbolts before turning back to face me.
"Mr. Harrison," I gasped, leaning against the hallway wall to catch my breath. "He was in my house. He's looking for the original charter. And... he had a gun, Eleanor."
Eleanor didn't look surprised. In fact, she let out a slow, weary sigh, as if a heavy burden she had carried for decades had finally been confirmed.
"Thomas Harrison," Eleanor said bitterly. "I should have fired him thirty years ago when Arthur first suspected him of skimming from the initial accounts."
"You knew?" I asked, staring at her in disbelief. "You knew Harrison was involved from the beginning?"
"I suspected," Eleanor corrected, gesturing for me to follow her into her private study. "Arthur and I found discrepancies in the corporate ledger right after the company was founded. But David covered for him. David claimed Harrison was just an ambitious young lawyer making clerical errors. By the time Arthur passed away, Harrison had buried the paper trail so deep we couldn't prove a thing without the original signed charter."
I dropped the leather journal onto her mahogany desk.
"I found this in Andrew's room," I said. "It's my old journal from thirty years ago. But David’s entries are in the back. He admitted to using my father's land deed as collateral without my knowledge to secure the startup loan."
Eleanor opened the journal, scanning David's cramped handwriting with a grim expression.
"He was always a parasite," Eleanor whispered. "He took every shortcut, stole every credit, and manipulated everyone around him—including your son."
"Where is Andrew now?" I asked, a sudden wave of maternal panic washing over me despite everything my son had done. "Harrison knows Andrew helped forge the proxy. If Harrison is desperate enough to break into my house with a gun, he won't hesitate to silence Andrew to keep him from talking to the authorities."
Eleanor’s face went pale.
She dropped the journal onto the desk and grabbed her phone, dialing a rapid sequence of numbers.
"I told Andrew to stay at the downtown loft after the gala," Eleanor said, pressing the phone to her ear. "It's secure. It has a private elevator and biometric entry."
She waited, listening to the dial tone.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then, a heavy, static-filled click answered on the other end.
"Andrew?" Eleanor said sharply into the receiver. "Andrew, are you there?"
There was no voice on the other end of the line. Just a faint, rhythmic tapping sound, like metal striking wood, followed by the sound of heavy breathing.
May you like
Then, a cold, smooth voice spoke.
"He's not answering right now, Mrs. Whitmore," Mr. Harrison's voice purred through the speaker. "He's currently tied to a chair, listening to us chat." *
