Chapter 3: What Was in the Fourth Folder
Marcus did not open the fourth folder immediately.
He stood at the table with his hand flat on top of it, and he looked at his sister, and he waited.
Because some part of him still wanted her to explain.
Some part of him had driven six hours and was still, even now, hoping there was a version of this that made sense.
Susan said nothing.
She was holding Vincent's phone against her side with both hands.
Marcus opened the folder.
Inside was a single document, two pages, printed on plain white paper with a law firm letterhead at the top.
Hartwell & Crane, Albany, NY.
He had never heard of them.
He read the first paragraph.
Then he read it again.
"This is a death certificate."
His voice came out flat.
Not loud.
Flat, the way a floor is flat.
"It's dated September third." He looked up.
"That's four days from now.
And it has my father's name on it."
Eli turned from the elevator doors.
Arthur had gone very still in the shaft.
"It's a contingency document," Susan said.
Her voice had changed.
The careful warmth was gone.
What was underneath it was not cold exactly — it was tired, the way someone sounds when they have been carrying something heavy for a long time and have stopped pretending it isn't heavy.
"It was never going to be used."
"It has a cause of death typed in."
"Marcus—"
"Natural causes.
Cardiac event." He set the page down.
"Someone typed that.
Someone printed it.
Someone put it in a folder with a transfer document and a power of attorney and drove it to this house." He looked at her.
"Was that you, Susan?
Or was that Vincent?"
Vincent was standing near the window.
He had not moved since Susan took his phone.
He was looking at the floor.
"It was a precaution," Susan said.
"A precaution."
"If he had refused to sign.
If things had become — complicated."
"Complicated." Marcus picked up the power of attorney.
"This is backdated.
That's fraud.
The transfer document has a signature line for a man who was locked in a wall." He dropped it.
"What exactly were you going to do if he still refused on the thirty-first?"
"Nothing was going to happen to him."
"He has been in that shaft since August thirtieth."
"He was never in danger."
"Susan." Marcus's voice dropped.
"He has a bucket in the corner."
The room was quiet.
The brass clock kept going.
From the shaft came the sound of Arthur shifting his weight, the soft drag of fabric against metal.
"I want to call an ambulance," Eli said.
Everyone looked at him.
He was still standing at the elevator doors, one hand braced on the frame, looking at his father with an expression that was not a child's expression.
"Grandpa needs a doctor.
Can I call now?"
Marcus looked at his son for a long moment.
Then he reached into his pocket and held out his phone.
"Yes," he said.
"Call."
Eli took it and stepped away toward the far end of the room, already dialling.
Susan watched him go.
Something moved across her face — not guilt, not yet.
Something more like calculation, the look of a person revising a plan in real time.
"Marcus, listen to me." She stepped toward him.
"This was never about hurting anyone.
Dad was going to give the company to a charitable trust.
Do you understand what that means?
Everything Grandfather built.
Everything we grew up with.
Gone.
To strangers."
"So you locked him in a lift."
"We needed time.
We needed him to see reason."
"Eleven days, Susan."
"He's stubborn.
You know how he is.
He wouldn't talk to us.
He kept saying he'd made up his mind." Her voice tightened.
"I didn't have a choice."
"You had every choice." Marcus picked up the fourth folder and held it.
"You chose this one."
Vincent finally moved.
He came away from the window and stopped beside Susan, and he put his hand on her arm — not to comfort her.
To steady himself.
"Marcus," he said.
"Before you do anything.
There are things you don't know yet.
About the company.
About what your father was planning to do with it and why." He paused.
"Things that affect you.
And Eli."
Marcus looked at him.
"Whatever you're about to say," Marcus said, "say it to the police."
He crossed to the elevator, crouched beside his father, and began working at the binding on his wrists.
Behind him, Susan's hand went to her pocket.
Her fingers found her own phone.
She looked at the screen.
Then she looked at the doorway.
Vincent saw it.
He shook his head, once, very slightly.
She put the phone away.
But Marcus had not seen any of it.
He was looking at his father's face, at the thin lines around his eyes, at the way the old man's jaw had set the moment he heard the word police.
"Dad." He got the binding loose.
"Is there anything else I need to know before they get here?"
Arthur rubbed his wrists.
He looked at the table.
At the folders.
At the window where Vincent had been standing.
"The fourth folder," Arthur said.
"There's a page behind the death certificate.
Did you see it?"
Marcus looked back at the folder in his hand.
He opened it again.
Behind the two-page document was a single sheet he had missed — smaller, handwritten, folded once.
He unfolded it.
He read it.
May you like
His face did not change.
But he sat down on the floor of the shaft beside his father, right there on the dusty metal, and he did not get up for a long time.
