A young FBI agent approached with a tablet. Ma’am, we’re finding something unusual in the thermal scans of the buildings. The basement here shows multiple hidden rooms. Hidden rooms? Matthew looked bewildered. That’s impossible. I know every inch of these houses, do you? Brooke laughed softly. You never questioned why we always used the same construction company for every renovation.
Why certain areas were off limits during work? Richard thought he was so clever with his evidence, never realizing I had my own collection growing right under his feet. 30 years of secrets buried in concrete and steel. I thought about all the Harrison properties I’d helped redesign over the years. Always working around structural limitations that Brooke had insisted couldn’t be changed.
What’s in those rooms? Everything, she said simply. Every scheme, every victim, every crime, not just ours, but going back to Charles’s time. I kept it all. Insurance, I told myself. But really, she glanced at Matthew. Something like regret crossing her face. Really? I think I was waiting. Waiting for what? Clare asked.
For someone strong enough to end it, to do what I couldn’t. Brooke straightened her shoulders. In my study at the main house behind the Monae, there’s a safe. The combination is the date Charles died. Inside, you’ll find a letter written the day I realized I was pregnant with Matthew. Read it. You’ll understand why it had to be you, Rebecca.
As they led Brooke away, I turned to Clare. We need to get to that safe before anyone else does. The drive to the main Harrison house was a blur. The FBI team worked quickly locating and opening the safe. Inside was a single envelope yellowed with age addressed simply to the one who ends it. What I read in that letter would reshape everything I thought I knew about Brooke, about the cycle of abbid e and power and about the true cost of revenge.
But more importantly, it would show me the way forward. Not just for me, but for every woman the Harrisons had ever heard. Because Brooke hadn’t just been keeping evidence of crimes. She’d been keeping something far more valuable, the means to make everything right. The letter trembled in my hands as I read it in Brook’s study.
