PART 3 — THE MAN WHO KNEW HER SECRET

Julian didn’t open the door.

Instead, he stood silently beside it, listening to the storm and the man waiting outside.

“Boone,” Sheriff Mercer called again. “I don’t have all night.”

“Then tell me what you want from the other side of the door.”

The sheriff sighed.

“I want to speak to the woman.”

“She has a name.”

“Aurelia Phillips,” the sheriff replied. “And according to the gentleman who came with me, she’s in possession of something stolen from his family.”

I pushed myself upright, ignoring the pain in my leg.

“Tell him I want to see him,” I said.

Julian turned sharply.

“Aurelia, you’re hurt.”

“I know. But if someone claims to be my uncle, I want to know why I’ve never heard of him.”

For a moment, Julian seemed reluctant. Then he slowly lifted the wooden bar.

The door opened just wide enough for the sheriff to step inside.

Sheriff Daniel Mercer was a lean man in his fifties with a gray mustache and snow covering the shoulders of his coat. Behind him stood another man.

He was tall, thin, and dressed in an expensive black overcoat. A silver-headed cane rested in his right hand.

I recognized him immediately.

The man from the railway station.

He smiled when he saw me.

“Aurelia,” he said. “You’ve caused quite a disturbance.”

I stared at him.

“Who are you?”

His smile disappeared for half a second.

“Edwin Mercer. Your mother’s brother.”

“I don’t have an uncle.”

“You have more family than you realize.”

Julian stepped between us.

“Whatever business you have with her, you’ll explain it here.”

Edwin glanced at Julian’s enormous frame and gave a faint, dismissive smile.

“This is a family matter.”

“She’s under my roof,” Julian answered. “That makes it my concern.”

Edwin looked toward the table.

His eyes landed on the metal object.

And suddenly, his polite expression vanished.

“Where did you get that?”

Julian didn’t answer.

Edwin took one step forward.

“That belongs to me.”

“No,” I said.

Both men turned toward me.

I looked directly at Edwin.

“I’ve never seen that object before today. If it was hidden in my leg, someone put it there without my knowledge.”

Edwin’s face became unreadable.

“Your father told me you had become difficult.”

“My father tells many stories.”

The sheriff shifted uncomfortably.

“Mr. Mercer, perhaps you should explain why you’ve come all this way.”

Edwin took a folded document from inside his coat.

“Certainly.”

He placed it on the table.

“This is a property agreement signed by Aurelia’s mother, Margaret Phillips, shortly before her death.”

My eyes moved across the paper.

My mother’s name appeared near the bottom.

But the signature looked strange.

I had seen her handwriting countless times in the letters she’d left behind. This signature was too large, too deliberate, and the final letters were shaped incorrectly.

“That’s not her handwriting,” I said.

Edwin’s jaw тιԍнтened.

“You were a child when she died. You wouldn’t know.”

“I was seventeen.”

He said nothing.

I leaned forward.

“My mother always crossed the letter P in Phillips twice. That signature doesn’t.”

For the first time, Edwin looked uncertain.

Julian picked up the document and examined it.

“What property?”

Edwin hesitated.

“An old mining claim in the mountains.”

Julian’s expression changed.

“Where?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

Julian placed the paper back on the table.

“Then neither is whatever you’re asking her to give you.”

Edwin gave a humorless laugh.

“You don’t understand what you’ve become involved in, Boone.”

“Maybe not,” Julian replied. “But I understand a forged signature when I see one.”

The sheriff looked at the document again.

“Mr. Mercer, if the signature is disputed, this matter belongs before a proper authority.”

Edwin slowly folded his papers.

“Of course, Sheriff.”

But he didn’t leave.

Instead, he looked at me.

“Your mother was supposed to give you something before she died. A small brᴀss key. Do you still have it?”

My breath caught.

I had almost forgotten about the key.

It had belonged to my mother, and I’d kept it in a little velvet pouch since childhood. It was the only thing my father had allowed me to keep after her death.

I had packed it inside my trunk.

“Why do you want to know?” I asked.

“Because it opens a box containing documents that belong to me.”

I shook my head.

“My mother never mentioned you.”

“Your mother was frightened of many things.”

Julian’s voice became quiet.

“That’s enough.”

Edwin looked at him with open irritation.

“Boone, you may be a powerful man in these mountains, but you have no idea what you’re protecting.”

He turned toward the door.

Before stepping outside, he paused and looked back at me.

“Keep that key safe, Aurelia. You may discover that your mother left you a much greater inheritance than you deserve.”

Then he disappeared into the snow.

The sheriff remained a moment longer.

“I don’t like this,” he admitted. “I’ll look into the agreement. But I suggest you keep your doors locked.”

After he left, Julian secured the door and returned to my bedside.

“Do you have the key?”

I nodded.

“It should be in my trunk.”

He went to retrieve it.

A few moments later, he returned carrying my small velvet pouch.

Inside was a brᴀss key with an unusual star-shaped handle.

Julian examined it beneath the lamp.

“Have you ever tried opening anything with this?”

“No. My mother told me to keep it until the day someone came asking questions about the old property.”

He looked up.

“Did she say anything else?”

I closed my eyes, searching my memory.

“She told me that if a man named Edwin ever appeared, I should never hand him the key.”

Julian went completely still.

“You remember that clearly?”

“I was seventeen. She made me promise.”

I watched him turn the key over in his palm.

Then he walked to the old chest beneath the window and pulled out a small wooden box.

It had been there since before I arrived.

“I found this in the abandoned cabin near my northern boundary,” he explained. “It was hidden beneath a loose floorboard. I never found the key.”

My heart began beating faster.

He placed the box on the table.

The brᴀss lock had a tiny star-shaped opening.

It was an exact match.

“Julian,” I whispered. “Where did you say you found this?”

“On the old mining trail.”

He carefully inserted the key.

It turned.

Inside lay several folded letters, a faded pH๏τograph, and a small leather notebook.

I reached for the pH๏τograph first.

It showed my mother standing beside a younger woman. They were outside a wooden building, and behind them stood a man whose face had been partially obscured by shadow.

I recognized my mother immediately.

But the younger woman beside her looked remarkably like me.

On the back, someone had written:

Margaret, Elizabeth, and the last rightful heir.

“Who is Elizabeth?” Julian asked.

I shook my head.

“I don’t know.”

He opened the notebook.

The first few pages contained dates, names, and references to a mining company called Blackstone Mountain Resources.

Then Julian stopped at one entry.

His face became grim.

“What is it?”

He turned the notebook toward me.

The entry was dated three days before my mother’s death.

Edwin has discovered the truth. He knows Elizabeth’s child survived. If anything happens to me, Aurelia must never be allowed to sign away the northern claim. The land contains more than gold. The original survey proves who owns it—and who has been stealing from it.

I read the words twice.

“Elizabeth,” I whispered. “Who was she?”

Julian turned another page.

A small envelope had been tucked between the papers.

It was addressed in my mother’s handwriting.

TO MY DAUGHTER, AURELIA.

My hands trembled as I opened it.

Inside was a single letter.

My dearest Aurelia,

If you are reading this, then I was unable to tell you the truth myself.

You were never supposed to believe that your father was the only family you had.

Your real inheritance is hidden beneath the old survey house, but you must not go there alone. Edwin has spent years searching for the original records. He believes they will make him rich, but they will also expose what he did to the people who trusted him.

There is one person who knows where the records are buried.

His name is Julian Boone.

I stopped breathing.

I looked up slowly.

Julian was staring at the letter as though the words had struck him harder than any physical blow.

“Why would my mother write your name?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he crossed the room and retrieved a small pH๏τograph from the chest.

It showed a younger Julian standing beside an older woman.

I recognized the woman from the pH๏τograph I’d just seen.

It was the same woman who had stood beside my mother.

“That’s Elizabeth,” Julian said quietly.

“Who was she?”

He looked at me.

“My mother.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Julian lowered himself into the chair beside the bed.

“Your mother and mine were close,” he explained. “Elizabeth disappeared when I was twelve. I was told she’d left the mountains after a dispute over the mining claim.”

“And you never found her?”

“No.”

He looked down at the pH๏τograph.

“But before she disappeared, she told me that one day a woman might come looking for her. She said that if I ever met her daughter, I was to protect her.”

I stared at him.

“Your mother knew about me?”

Julian nodded.

“And apparently, she knew you’d come here.”

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then something outside caught our attention.

A horse.

It was moving slowly through the snow.

Julian stood and looked through the narrow window.

A rider had stopped near the edge of the clearing.

He was holding a lantern.

And beside him stood another horse.

Neither animal belonged to the sheriff.

Julian’s expression hardened.

“Stay away from the window.”

“What is it?”

He reached for his coat.

“Someone has found the cabin.”

The rider lifted his lantern.

A folded piece of paper was tied beneath it, fluttering in the wind.

Julian opened the door only after checking the clearing.

The rider was gone.

Only the paper remained, pinned beneath a small stone on the porch.

Julian brought it inside.

There were just two sentences written across it.

The woman you are protecting is not the only surviving heir.

Ask her who her father really was.

I looked at Julian.

He looked back at me.

Then he turned the paper over.

A name had been written on the other side.

EDWIN MERCER.

And beneath it, in a different hand, were five words that changed everything.

He is not your uncle.

TO BE CONTINUED — PART 4: THE BLOODLINE JULIAN BOONE NEVER KNEW