It was Esther’s prayer journal. She carried it everywhere.
And next to it was a thick envelope filled with photographs.
“I found this in the safe Esther kept here,” Thorne said softly. “She had her own combination. I never asked what was in it. I trusted her completely. But after she passed, I knew I had to look. I had to make sure her affairs were in order.”
He pushed the journal toward me.
“Open it, Booker. Read the last entry.”
My hands shook as I reached for the book. The leather was warm, as if she had just been holding it.
I opened it to the bookmark.
The handwriting was hers—neat and looping—but the ink was shaky, as if she had been writing in a hurry, or in fear.
I read the words.
“Terrence asked for money again. I told him no. He looked at me with eyes I did not recognize. He looked at me like he hated me. I found the pills in his jacket pocket today. They look just like my heart medication, but they aren’t. I am scared, Booker. I am scared of our son.”
I stopped reading.
The room seemed to tilt.
I couldn’t breathe.
Mr. Vance spoke up, his voice gravelly. “Look at the photos, Mr. King.”
I reached for the envelope. I poured the contents onto the desk.
Dozens of photos spilled out. They were grainy, taken with a long-range lens, but the subjects were clear.
There was Terrence. He was standing in an alleyway talking to a man with tattoos on his neck. He was handing over a thick wad of cash.
There was another photo: Terrence and Tiffany sitting in a car. Tiffany was laughing, holding up a bottle of champagne.
But the last photo made me freeze. It felt like a physical blow to the chest.
It was taken through the kitchen window of my own house.
It was taken three nights ago.
The timestamp said 2:00 a.m.
In the photo, Terrence was standing at the kitchen counter. He was holding two orange prescription bottles. One was Esther’s heart medication. The other was unlabeled.
He was pouring the pills from one bottle into the other.
He was smiling.
I stared at the image.
My son—my flesh and blood, the boy I had carried on my shoulders, the boy I had taught to tie his shoes—was switching the pills.
“He killed her,” I whispered.
The words felt like gravel in my mouth.
“He killed his own mother.”
Thorne leaned forward, his face grim.
“He did not just kill her, Booker,” he said. “He executed her. And now he is coming for you.”
“Why?” I asked, looking up, my eyes burning but dry. “Why would he do this?”
Thorne pointed to the journal again. “Turn the page, Booker. Look at what she was hiding from you. Look at what she was hiding from everyone.”
I turned the page.
And there, pasted into the book, was a bank statement.
The balance was not a few thousand.
It was not even one hundred thousand.
It was three million dollars.
My Esther—the housekeeper, the woman who clipped coupons and darned my socks.
She was a millionaire.
And Terrence knew.
The realization hit me with the force of a freight train.
He did not kill her because he hated her.
He killed her because he was greedy.
He killed her for a payday.
I stood up. The chair fell backward with a crash.
“I am going to kill him,” I roared.
I reached for my back waistband where the cold steel of my pistol pressed against my spine. “I am going to go back there and I am going to—”
“No,” Thorne shouted, his voice cracked like a whip.
