It was not what Claire expected.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean Evan disappeared before anyone could stop the situation from escalating.”
“And my mother?”
Thomas swallowed.
Another tiny crack.
“Rachel made choices.”
Claire stepped forward.
“What choices?”
Thomas’s jaw tightened.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
Claire stared at him.
“That sentence would sound more convincing if my husband hadn’t just tried to erase me.”
Thomas’s face changed again.
This time genuine shock.
“Daniel did what?”
Claire watched him carefully.
He seemed surprised.
Actually surprised.
And there it was.
The first major twist.
Daniel had not acted under Thomas’s instructions.
At least not directly.
Which meant Daniel had his own reason.
Thomas moved quickly.
“Where is he now?”
“Looking for my body.”
“We need to leave.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“Why?”
Thomas looked at Melissa and Walter again.
Then finally said, “Because if Daniel tried to remove you before you found the chapel, then he already knows what’s missing from the case.”
Claire looked at the mostly empty box.
“What’s missing?”
Thomas whispered, “The original deed.”
Melissa frowned.
“To what?”
Thomas closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, he no longer looked like a powerful attorney.
He looked old.
“To Red Hollow.”
Claire stared at him.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
Thomas pointed toward the ledger.
“Look at the final page.”
Claire flipped to the back.
One page had been folded inward.
She opened it.
A handwritten note.
Evan Bennett’s handwriting.
If Claire survives, Red Hollow transfers to her at forty-one.
Claire’s pulse stopped.
She was forty-one.
Melissa read over her shoulder.
Thomas continued.
“The land is worth more now than anyone imagined in 1999.”
“How much?”
Thomas hesitated.
“Potentially hundreds of millions.”
Walter let out a low breath.
Claire looked at the old stone walls around them.
“For what?”
Thomas answered quietly.
“Water.”
Of course.
In Colorado, water could be worth more than land.
More than gold.
More than almost anything.
Claire’s birthday had been six weeks ago.
Forty-one.
Daniel had begun behaving strangely around the same time.
Late calls.
Questions about her parents.
Sudden interest in hiking.
Claire felt the entire shape of the betrayal click into place.
Daniel had not married her only because Thomas introduced them.
Maybe once there had been affection.
Maybe not.
But he knew about the transfer.
He knew Claire’s age triggered something.
And he needed her gone before she could claim it.
Thomas looked toward the stairwell.
“We have very little time.”
Claire said, “Then start talking.”
Thomas opened his mouth.
A phone rang upstairs.
Not Claire’s.
Not Melissa’s.
Thomas went pale.
Walter whispered, “You came alone?”
Thomas did not answer.
That was enough.
They moved.
Walter led them through a narrow storage passage behind the basement shelves that opened into a collapsed side room.
They climbed over debris and exited through a broken rear wall.
Outside, wind had picked up.
Claire saw two black SUVs parked near the chapel.
Daniel stepped out of one.
Alive with anger.
No grief now.
No performance.
He spotted Claire.
For one second both of them simply stared.
Daniel’s face looked almost empty.
Then he smiled.
“Claire.”
She stood ten yards away.
“You seem disappointed.”
“You don’t understand what you found.”
“I understand enough.”
“Do you?”
He glanced toward Thomas.
Something passed between them.
Not alliance.
Conflict.
Daniel said, “You should’ve stayed away from Red Hollow.”
Claire’s hand tightened around the ledger beneath her coat.
“You should’ve checked whether I was actually gone.”
Daniel took another step.
Melissa raised her phone, recording.
Daniel stopped.
Smart.
Still careful.
Still thinking.
That was the man Claire had married.
Thomas stepped between them.
“Daniel, leave.”
Daniel laughed once.
“You don’t give orders anymore, Tom.”
Thomas’s face tightened.
Claire caught the phrasing.
Anymore.
Daniel knew far more about Thomas than Thomas knew about Daniel.
A second man emerged from the other SUV.
Claire recognized him too.
Harrison Vale.
The billionaire investor.
He looked at Claire with an expression that held no surprise at all.
“Mrs. Mason,” Harrison said. “This has become unnecessarily complicated.”
Claire’s blood went cold.
Thomas whispered, “No.”
Harrison ignored him.
“You have property that technically transferred to you six weeks ago. We would like to resolve that situation privately.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
“So that’s what this was.”
Daniel’s expression flickered.
“Claire, listen—”
“No.”
“You think I wanted this?”
“You brought me onto a mountain.”
“I was trying to stop something worse.”
The second major twist landed harder than the first.
Claire almost laughed.
“By leaving me there?”
Daniel looked toward Harrison.
For the first time, Claire saw fear in her husband’s face.
Not fear of her.
Fear of Harrison Vale.
Harrison sighed.
“Daniel has always struggled with commitment.”
Thomas said sharply, “Enough.”
Harrison smiled.
“You still think you’re protecting Rachel’s daughter.”
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