But Pierce found nothing large enough to explain Daniel’s terror.
“Was there any part of the house they protected unusually closely?” she asked.
I thought about Daniel’s office.
Marjorie’s cedar chest.
The basement shelves.
Then I remembered something from three years earlier.
I had tried to clear the narrow linen closet beside the guest bathroom.
The rear panel moved when I lifted a stack of towels.
Daniel snapped at me so harshly that I froze.
Later, he brought flowers and claimed the closet contained painful family memories.
“The linen closet,” I said.
Marjorie’s hand twitched.
Pierce noticed.
An agent emptied the shelves.
Behind the towels, blankets, and cleaning supplies, he tapped the rear wall.
Hollow.
When he pulled the panel free, Marjorie stood.
“You have no right!”
The compartment was packed from floor to ceiling.
Cash.
Passports.
External drives.
Photographs.
Photocopied identification cards.
Manila envelopes labeled in Marjorie’s precise handwriting.
