Chapter 4 - The Blue House Records
The safehouse in Bedford was an old log cabin built into the side of a steep, heavily wooded hill, completely invisible from the main road. The interior was warm, heated by a wood-burning stove that filled the space with the clean, sharp scent of pine.
Marcus Reed sat at the small kitchen island, three laptops open in front of him, their screens displaying a complex web of financial transactions, land registries, and old police dispatch logs. Nova and Luna were asleep in the small bedroom down the short hallway, the door left open an inch so Marcus could hear any movement.
The front door opened, and Logan walked in, his face tight with a exhaustion that went deeper than his bones. He dropped his wet jacket onto a chair and walked straight to the kitchen island.
"What did you find?" Logan asked, his eyes tracking the columns of data on the monitors.
"The blue house," Marcus said, tapping a key to bring up a real-estate deed from five years ago. "It’s located in a town called Monroe, about two hours northwest of here. The property was purchased through a shell company called Riverdale Management. The registered agent for that company is a lawyer named Frank Falcone—he’s been on Vincent’s personal payroll since 1994."
Marcus shifted to the second monitor, showing a series of encrypted bank transfers. "Every month, fifty thousand dollars was withdrawn in cash from a discretionary account in Brooklyn and moved to a safety deposit box in Monroe. The withdrawals stopped exactly fourteen months ago. The exact month Nova said her mother died."
Logan leaned over the counter, his knuckles pressing into the wood. "He was funding her isolation. He kept her there, under watch, using Falcone to manage the logistics so it never hit the main Marchetti ledgers."
"It gets worse, boss," Marcus said, his voice dropping an octave as he opened a third file—a scanned PDF of a local sheriff’s report from Monroe dated August of last year. "The night Elena died, the local police responded to a domestic disturbance call at the blue house. The caller reported shouting and a woman screaming. When the deputies arrived, the house was empty. They found blood on the basement stairs and signs of a struggle in the kitchen. The report was filed as a missing persons case, but three hours later, a state police captain arrived, took the physical files, and ordered the local sheriff to scrub the entry from the digital log."
"The captain was one of Vincent’s boys," Logan muttered, his eyes dark with an unholy fury. "He cleaned the scene."
"He thought he did," Marcus said, turning the third screen toward Logan. "But the local deputy kept his personal notes on a private drive. He noted that a silver Mercedes—a newer model, registered to a corporate account in Manhattan—was seen leaving the property twenty minutes before the first call came in. The plate belongs to Vincent’s personal transport service."
Logan stood up straight, his hands opening and closing at his sides. "He was there himself. He didn't send his collectors that night. He went to that house himself to see her."
Before Marcus could reply, a soft sound came from the hallway.
Luna stood in the doorway, her small frame wrapped in an oversized gray sweatshirt Marcus had found in the duffel bags. She was holding the leather sketchbook against her chest, her gray-green eyes wide and alert in the dim light of the cabin.
"Luna," Logan said gently, his voice instantly shifting away from the cold authority he had used with Marcus. "Why aren't you sleeping?"
The little girl walked over to him, her bare feet silent on the wood floor. She didn't look at Marcus or the computers. She stopped right in front of Logan, lifting the sketchbook toward him again.
"There’s a secret page," she whispered. "Mommy told me I could only show you if the bad man with the silver hair found us again."
Logan took the book, his brow furrowing. He opened the cover, flipping through the drawings of Elena, the children, and Greystone Manor until he reached the very back of the volume. The final page appeared to be a thick, double-layered sheet of parchment, the edges sealed together with a thin strip of industrial adhesive that had begun to dry and peel over the years.
Logan carefully slipped the tip of his pocketknife between the layers, slicing the adhesive until the hidden compartment popped open.
Inside was a single, folded piece of paper—not a drawing, but a letter written in Elena’s elegant, sweeping script, the ink faded but perfectly legible.
Logan, the letter began.
If you are reading this, it means I am gone, and my girls have found their way to you. I pray to God they made it to Greystone alive.
Vincent didn't stage my accident to protect the family, Logan. He staged it because I found the records in our father’s old desk before the funeral. Our father didn't die of a heart attack in that hospital. Vincent poisoned him. He changed the dosage on his medication because our father was planning to name you as the sole head of the family, bypassing Vincent entirely.
I confronted him with the medical logs, and that night, he had his men run my car off the road. He didn't kill me then because he wanted the keys to the Swiss accounts—the ones our father set up under my name that contain the family’s emergency reserves. For eight years, I have given him the transfer codes, one by one, to keep my daughters alive.
But the reserves are empty now, Logan. There is nothing left to give him. He is coming for us tonight. If you love me, if you remember the morning light in the parlor, protect my girls. Kill him, Logan. Kill him before he finishes what he started.
Your sister, Elena.
Logan closed his eyes, a single, silent tear cutting a clean path through the mud on his cheek. The final piece of the puzzle had fallen into place, and the picture it formed was one of total, unadulterated horror. Thirty years of loyalty, eight years of grief, all built on a foundation of ash and blood.
May you like
He opened his eyes, and the gray-green depths were completely devoid of humanity. He looked at Marcus.
"Get the car," Logan said, his voice as quiet and cold as the river mud. "We’re ending this tonight."
