PART 24
Chief Briggs didn’t hesitate.
“Nobody touches that envelope.”
A forensic photographer immediately knelt beside the flowerpot.
Flash.
Flash.
Flash.
Every angle was documented before an evidence technician carefully lifted the small white envelope with gloved hands.
Harvey stared at Margaret’s handwriting.
“I’d know those letters anywhere.”
“You recognize it?” Wyatt asked.
Harvey nodded.
“Margaret always wrote like she was afraid someone else would read her words.”
Chief Briggs examined the seal.
“It hasn’t been opened.”
Detective Harris looked toward the road.
“The SUV has a twenty-minute head start.”
Chief Briggs immediately began giving orders.
“Roadblocks on every highway leaving Columbus.”
“Alert State Patrol.”
“Check traffic cameras.”
“Yes, Chief.”
Another detective hurried over carrying a tablet.
“Chief, we’ve enhanced the surveillance video.”
“What did you find?”
“The SUV has temporary dealer plates.”
“So they’re fake,” Wyatt muttered.
“Most likely,” the detective replied.
Chief Briggs carefully placed the envelope inside a portable evidence folder.
“I’m taking this straight to Sadie.”
Harvey gently touched his arm.
“No.”
Briggs looked up.
“What?”
“Read the front again.”
The chief looked down.
**Only Sadie must read this.**
Harvey shook his head.
“Walter taught Margaret to follow instructions exactly.”
“If she wrote those words…”
“…she had a reason.”
Chief Briggs nodded.
“You’re right.”
“Nobody opens it except Sadie.”
Back at Riverside Memorial Hospital, I couldn’t stop thinking about the mysterious phone call.
“I made a promise to your grandfather.”
Those words kept repeating in my mind.
One of the officers knocked gently before opening my hospital room door.
“Miss Davis…”
“Chief Briggs is back.”
A few moments later, Briggs, Wyatt, Harvey, and Detective Harris entered.
I immediately knew something was wrong.
“Margaret?”
Chief Briggs slowly shook his head.
“We missed her.”
My stomach dropped.
“What happened?”
He carefully placed the evidence folder on the bedside table.
“She left this for you.”
I looked at the familiar handwriting.
My fingers trembled.
Harvey smiled softly.
“She wanted only you to read it.”
I slowly broke the seal.
Inside was a single folded sheet of paper.
Nothing else.
I unfolded it carefully.
The handwriting was shaky, but every word was clear.
**Dear Sadie,**
**If this letter reached you, then they found me before the police did.**
A chill ran through my body.
I continued reading aloud.
**Do not blame yourself. I have been hiding for many years, and I always knew this day might come.**
Wyatt quietly took my hand.
The next paragraph made Harvey close his eyes.
**Walter never died believing he failed you. His last words were not about money, property, or revenge.**
My voice caught.
“What were they?”
I kept reading.
**His final words were: “Tell my granddaughter I never stopped choosing her.”**
Tears blurred my vision.
Harvey began crying openly.
“I was there…”
he whispered.
“I heard him say it.”
I continued.
**There is one lie everyone still believes. Even Harvey does not know the whole truth.**
Harvey looked up in shock.
“What?”
The room became silent.
I read the next sentence.
**Gregory did not become cruel after Walter changed his will…**
My heartbeat quickened.
**…Walter changed his will because Gregory had already done something unforgivable.**
Nobody breathed.
Chief Briggs slowly stepped closer.
“What did Gregory do?”
I turned the page.
There was only one final sentence.
**To understand why Walter feared his own son…find the red ledger hidden beneath the chapel floor before Gregory’s people do.**
The room fell completely silent.
Detective Harris frowned.
“What chapel?”
Harvey’s face suddenly lost every bit of color.
“Oh, no…”
Chief Briggs looked at him.
“You know where it is?”
Harvey slowly nodded.
“There isn’t just one chapel…”
“There are two.”
# PART 25
For several long seconds, no one in the hospital room spoke.
“There are two chapels?” Chief Briggs finally asked.
Harvey nodded slowly.
“Most people only know about the one beside the cemetery.”
“The second one…”
“…hasn’t been used in over thirty years.”
Wyatt frowned.
“Where is it?”
Harvey looked toward the window.
“On Walter’s old property.”
“Hidden behind the original sawmill.”
Chief Briggs immediately called Detective Harris.
“Harris.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“I need two teams.”
“One to the cemetery chapel.”
“One to the old sawmill.”
“No one enters until I arrive.”
“Understood.”
Before ending the call, Harris suddenly interrupted.
“Chief…”
“What?”
“We’ve got another problem.”
Chief Briggs sighed.
“What happened now?”
“Someone else is already searching both locations.”
The room fell silent.
Harvey whispered,
“They’re following Walter’s clues too.”
Chief Briggs immediately turned to Wyatt.
“Who else has seen the journal?”
Wyatt counted carefully.
“You.”
“Me.”
“Harvey.”
“Detective Harris.”
“The forensic team.”
“Eleanor over the phone.”
Chief Briggs slowly nodded.
“Too many people.”
Harvey shook his head.
“No.”
“Walter expected that.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He never left only one clue.”
“He always left two.”
Chief Briggs looked back at the letter.
“The red ledger…”
“…may not even be in either chapel.”
Harvey smiled faintly.
“Now you’re thinking like Walter.”
Just then Detective Harris burst into the room, breathing hard.
“Chief!”
“What happened?”
“The team at the cemetery chapel found nothing.”
Chief Briggs wasn’t surprised.
“And the sawmill?”
Harris swallowed.
“They found signs someone forced the door open less than an hour ago.”
Harvey closed his eyes.
“They chose correctly.”
Chief Briggs grabbed his jacket.
“We’re leaving.”
Wyatt looked at me.
“I’ll call the second we know anything.”
I nodded, trying to hide my fear.
As the police convoy raced toward the abandoned sawmill, rain began falling across Columbus.
Thunder rolled above the empty highway.
Twenty-five minutes later they arrived.
The old sawmill looked forgotten by time.
Broken windows.
Collapsed fencing.
Rusted machinery.
Behind it stood a tiny wooden chapel almost completely hidden beneath vines.
Harvey stared at it.
“Walter built this after your grandmother died.”
Chief Briggs pushed open the weathered door.
It creaked loudly.
Dust floated through the flashlight beams.
The tiny chapel contained only six pews.
A wooden cross.
A cracked stained-glass window.
Nothing more.
Detective Harris searched the floor.
“No fresh footprints.”
Another detective checked behind the altar.
“Nothing.”
Chief Briggs frowned.
“This can’t be right.”
Harvey slowly walked toward the front pew.
Then he smiled.
“Walter…”
“You stubborn old carpenter.”
Chief Briggs turned.
“What?”
Harvey pointed upward.
Everyone followed his finger.
Hanging from the ceiling…
was an old brass church bell.
Chief Briggs looked confused.
“The ledger is in the bell?”
Harvey laughed softly.
“No.”
“Walter never hid things where people looked first.”
He reached beneath the front pew and ran his fingers across the underside.
“There…”
Chief Briggs knelt beside him.
Hidden beneath the wood…
was a tiny carved oak leaf.
Exactly like the one on my necklace.
Harvey pressed it gently.
A soft click echoed beneath the floorboards.
The first pew slowly slid backward by itself.
Every officer stepped back.
A narrow stone staircase appeared beneath it.
Cold air drifted upward.
Detective Harris raised his flashlight.
“It goes down.”
Chief Briggs nodded.
“Stay together.”
The officers descended one by one.
At the bottom waited a small underground room.
Unlike the workshop…
this place had never been disturbed.
Dust covered every shelf.
Spider webs stretched across the corners.
In the center stood a single wooden table.
On top of it rested an old red leather ledger.
Harvey smiled through tears.
“He did it…”
“He really kept it safe.”
Chief Briggs carefully approached the table.
Just before his hand touched the ledger…
he noticed something folded beneath it.
A fresh piece of white paper.
Not old.
Not yellow.
Brand-new.
Chief Briggs unfolded it carefully.
Only one sentence had been typed.
**You’re finally close…but you’re still one chapter behind me.**
At the bottom…
someone had signed with a single letter.
**S.**
# PART 26
Nobody in the underground room spoke.
Chief Briggs kept his eyes on the typed note.
**You’re finally close…but you’re still one chapter behind me.**
At the bottom…
Only one letter.
**S.**
Wyatt broke the silence.
“Samuel?”
Harvey slowly shook his head.
“Maybe.”
“But Walter taught all of us one lesson…”
“Never trust the first answer.”
Chief Briggs slipped the note into an evidence bag.
“Check it for fingerprints.”
A forensic technician carefully dusted the paper.
Several partial prints appeared.
She looked up.
“There are prints…”
“But someone deliberately wiped most of the page.”
Chief Briggs nodded.
“They wanted us to find the message.”
“But not the messenger.”
Harvey turned his attention toward the old red leather ledger.
For nearly thirty years it had sat untouched beneath the chapel floor.
He reached toward it…
then stopped.
“No.”
Chief Briggs looked at him.
“What?”
“It isn’t mine.”
He looked directly at me through Wyatt’s phone, which was still connected on a live video call from the hospital.
“Sadie…”
“This belongs to you.”
I swallowed hard.
“I can’t be there.”
“You don’t have to be.”
Chief Briggs carefully positioned the phone above the table.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
I took a slow breath.
“Open it.”
The chief gently lifted the worn leather cover.
The pages crackled with age.
The first page contained no financial records.
No account numbers.
No property deeds.
Only a handwritten title.
**The Things Gregory Thought I Never Knew**
The room fell silent.
Chief Briggs slowly turned the page.
Every entry had a date.
Every date described something Gregory had hidden from Walter.
The first few entries were small.
Money missing from the cash register.
Forged supplier invoices.
Fake repair bills.
Then the entries became darker.
Far darker.
Walter had documented lies…
Threats…
Acts of intimidation…
Every page contained names, dates, signatures, and supporting documents carefully glued beside the entries.
Chief Briggs looked astonished.
“This isn’t a diary.”
Harvey nodded.
“No.”
“It’s evidence.”
Wyatt quietly whispered,
“My God…”
Walter had been building a legal case against his own son.
Chief Briggs turned another page.
Suddenly he stopped.
His expression changed completely.
“What is it?” I asked.
The chief didn’t answer immediately.
Instead…
he carefully removed a folded newspaper clipping tucked between the pages.
The headline read:
**LOCAL CONTRACTOR DIES IN FALL AT CONSTRUCTION SITE**
The article was dated twenty-nine years earlier.
Chief Briggs looked toward Harvey.
“Do you remember this man?”
Harvey looked once…
and immediately froze.
“Thomas Walker…”
he whispered.
“He didn’t fall.”
Everyone looked at him.
“What?”
Harvey slowly sat down.
“Walter told me Thomas was about to testify against Gregory for stealing from the company.”
Chief Briggs looked back at the newspaper.
“The police ruled it an accident.”
Harvey closed his eyes.
“Walter never believed that.”
The chief carefully unfolded another sheet hidden behind the article.
It was Walter’s own handwritten note.
**Thomas told me Gregory threatened him three days before his death. If anything happens to Thomas, this ledger must survive even if I do not.**
The underground room became completely silent.
Detective Harris finally spoke.
“Chief…”
“If this is true…”
“…Gregory’s violence didn’t begin with Sadie.”
Chief Briggs nodded grimly.
“It began decades ago.”
Just then a deputy’s radio crackled loudly.
“Unit Three to Chief Briggs.”
“Go ahead.”
“We’ve got movement outside the chapel.”
Chief Briggs instantly looked up.
“Police?”
“No, sir.”
“Then who?”
The deputy’s breathing became heavy.
“There are three black SUVs surrounding the property…”
“…and none of the people getting out are wearing license plates on their vehicles.”……………………….
