Chapter 8 - the lost key
Dawn broke over the Hudson Valley in pale shades of gray and gold. Mark hadn't slept a wink. He stood by the kitchen window, drinking black coffee, watching the newly posted armed guards patrol the perimeter fence.
Rosa walked into the kitchen, carrying Lily’s clean clothes. Her face was lined with exhaustion. "Mr. Whitmore, Lily is awake. She asked if she could have pancakes."
Mark managed a faint, genuine smile. "Make her whatever she wants, Rosa. Make enough for an army."
Rosa nodded, but she lingered by the island, nervously twisting her apron hem. "Sir... there is something else. Something I didn't tell you last night."
Mark set his coffee cup down. "What is it, Rosa?"
"Two days before you returned, Ray Miller came into the pantry while I was organizing the canned goods," Rosa said quietly. "He didn't see me because I was behind the supply shelves. He was searching for something behind the loose baseboard near the floor."
"Did he find it?"
"No," Rosa said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, tarnished brass key with an intricately carved handle. "Because I found it three months ago while cleaning behind the old pantry flour bins. It had fallen behind the wall."
Mark took the key. It was old, heavy, and cold. Stamped on the narrow blade of the key were three small letters: *CSW*.
*Clara Sterling Whitmore.*
"Where does this belong?" Mark asked, examining the unusual antique teeth of the key.
"It belongs to the old lockbox in the boathouse," Rosa whispered. "Clara used to keep her personal sketchbooks down there before the accident. After she died, you boarded up the boathouse. You told us never to go down there."
Mark remembered. The boathouse sat on the rocky edge of the Hudson River, at the far southern corner of the estate. After Clara’s death, the sight of the water was too painful for him, so he had ordered the doors padlocked and the path overgrown.
Why would Ray Miller—Thomas Sterling’s hired muscle—be tearing up the mansion looking for Clara’s private boathouse key?
"Daddy?"
Mark turned. Lily stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing a clean pink sweater, her hair neatly combed by Rosa. Her eyes were still guarded, but the terror from the night before was beginning to fade.
Mark knelt down and opened his arms. Lily ran across the kitchen and threw herself into his embrace, wrapping her small arms around his neck.
"Are you going away again?" Lily whispered against his ear.
"Never," Mark said, his voice thick with emotion. "I’m staying right here. Nobody is ever taking you from me, Lily. Ever."
He held her tightly, feeling the brass key pressed against his palm inside his suit pocket.
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Whatever Clara had hidden in that boathouse four years ago was the real reason Thomas Sterling had resurfaced. And Mark was going to open it before anyone else did.
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