Chapter 4 - The House on Round Hill Road
The Vale estate on Round Hill Road looked entirely different when you entered it knowing someone inside had tried to murder the matriarch.
The great wrought-iron gates, cast in the shape of intertwined oak branches, parted silently as Naomi tapped her transponder against the scanner. The half-mile driveway wound through towering stands of sugar maples and Norwegian spruce, their leaves turning a violent, dying crimson in the late autumn chill.
The main house rose like a limestone fortress against the graying sky. Three stories of hand-cut Connecticut granite, slate roofs, and leaded casement windows that had stood since William Howard Taft was in the White House.
Naomi parked the Suburban near the service garage, far from the grand portico. As she stepped out, she heard the crunch of gravel behind her.
Leo, the estate’s twenty-four-year-old head groundskeeper, walked around the side of the potting shed, holding a pair of heavy pruning shears. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed.
"Miss Carter," Leo said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Thank God you're back. What’s happening? The radio in the gatehouse said Mrs. Vale was taken out by paramedics. Mrs. Henderson is crying in the pantry. And Miss Arden’s personal driver just showed up with two men I’ve never seen before."
Naomi stopped. "Two men? Where are they?"
"Upstairs," Leo said, pointing toward the east wing. "They came in through the garden terrace. They didn't use the front doors. Miss Arden called them from the hospital, told them they were 'private security' hired to secure the estate while the family was away. Miss Carter… they don't look like security. They look like the kind of guys who clean out houses after people die."
"Where is Mrs. Henderson?"
"Locked in the kitchen. I told her not to open the door for anybody except you."
Naomi reached out, placed a hand on the young man’s shoulder, and squeezed. "Leo, I need you to do something for me. And it might get you fired if this goes south."
Leo didn't hesitate. "My mother had cancer three years ago, Miss Carter. Mrs. Vale paid her chemo bills without asking for a nickel back. You tell me what to do."
"Go to the electrical junction room beneath the carriage house," Naomi said. "The master breaker for the east wing second floor. In exactly twelve minutes, I want you to pull the main feed for breaker panel B. Not the whole house—just the second floor of the east wing. It will kill the hallway cameras and the electronic deadbolts on the guest suite."
"What about the backup generator?"
"The automatic transfer switch takes forty-five seconds to kick in," Naomi said. "Forty-five seconds is all I need. Once you pull it, lock yourself in the tool shed and don't come out until I call you."
Leo nodded once, set his shears on the workbench, and took off across the manicured lawn toward the carriage house.
Naomi took a deep, steadying breath. She reached into her pocket, pulled out the heavy brass master key, and let herself into the service entrance beneath the kitchen porch.
The kitchen smelled of roasted garlic and braised veal—the preparations for the rehearsal dinner that would likely never happen. Mrs. Henderson, a round-faced woman who had cooked for the Vales for twenty years, was sitting at the butcher-block table, clutching a rosary.
When Naomi walked in, the older woman gasped, rising quickly. "Naomi! Is she—"
"She’s alive, Martha," Naomi said, cutting her off gently. "She’s at Greenwich Hospital. But we have very little time. Who is upstairs?"
"Two men in dark suits," Martha whispered, trembling. "They went straight to Miss Arden’s suite. Then one of them came down and asked where the morning room key was. I told him only you had it."
"Good." Naomi checked the vintage brass clock above the commercial range. *Nine minutes.*
"Martha, take your purse, get in your car, and drive off the property," Naomi instructed. "Go to the diner on Route 1. Sit there until I call you."
"Naomi, what is happening here?"
"Treasure hunters," Naomi said grimly. "Now go."
Once the back door clicked shut behind the cook, Naomi moved like water through the back corridors. She knew every plank in this house that groaned under weight. She knew that the third riser on the back servant staircase squeaked if stepped on near the wall, but remained silent if you took it dead center.
She ascended to the second floor, slipping into the narrow service passage that ran behind the master suites—a relic from the 1920s designed so maids could stoke the fireplaces without being seen by the guests.
Through a decorative brass heating grate, Naomi looked down into Evelyn’s morning room.
The two men Leo had seen were already inside.
They were young, built like college wrestlers, dressed in nondescript black track jackets and dark jeans. One of them was on his knees beneath the heavy oil portrait of Evelyn’s late husband, Charles Vale. The frame had already been swung away from the wall on its hidden hinges, revealing the brushed-steel digital face of the wall safe.
The second man was on a cell phone.
"Yeah, we're at the safe now," he was saying. His accent was thick, unpolished, distinctly South Boston. "No, Celeste, the electronic override code you gave us isn't working. It’s asking for a physical bi-axial key along with the eight-digit pin. The old lady must have upgraded the lock after you checked it last month."
Naomi checked her watch. *Two minutes.*
She reached into her coat pocket. Alongside the brass master key was the small, heavy iron key Evelyn had worn on a thin gold chain around her neck for thirty years. Naomi had unclipped it from Evelyn’s throat while the paramedics were lifting her onto the stretcher, slipping it into her sleeve before Celeste had turned around.
*One minute.*
Naomi crept out of the service door, stepping onto the plush Persian runner of the main gallery. The hallway was silent, save for the low hum of the centralized climate control.
She stood ten feet from the morning room door, waiting.
*Five. Four. Three. Two.*
*Click.*
The lights in the gallery vanished. The faint electronic hum of the security sensors died instantly. The soft, rhythmic beep of the safe’s digital keypad ceased.
"What the hell?" a voice shouted from inside the morning room.
"Breaker tripped. Grab your flashlight."
Naomi didn't hesitate. She stepped into the morning room doorway just as a beam of white LED light sliced across the mahogany desk.
Before the first man could turn his head, Naomi grabbed the heavy bronze bust of Marcus Aurelius from the side table—an eight-pound solid casting—and brought it down with savage precision across the back of his right shoulder.
The man roared in pain, dropping the flashlight as his collarbone shattered with a sickening crunch. He collapsed onto the rug, clutching his shoulder and swearing violently.
The second man spun around, pulling a short, heavy steel pry-bar from his waistband. "You crazy bitch—"
Naomi didn't back up. She kicked the dropped flashlight hard across the floor, its beam hitting the man directly in the eyes, blinding him for half a heartbeat.
In that half-second, she closed the distance. She didn't fight like an action hero; she fought like a woman who had grown up in an overcrowded house in North Philadelphia. She drove her heel directly down onto the arch of the man’s foot, grabbed his jacket lapel, and slammed his forehead straight into the edge of the open safe door.
The metal met bone with a dull, hollow *thud*.
The man went limp, his knees folding beneath him, sliding down the wallpapered wall onto the hardwood floor, unconscious before he hit the ground.
On the floor, the first man was groaning, dragging himself toward the door.
Naomi picked up the steel pry-bar he had dropped. She rested the heavy flat edge against the man’s temple.
"Don't move," she whispered.
The man froze, his breath rattling in his throat, staring up at her in the dim daylight filtering through the sheer curtains.
"Whose men are you?" Naomi asked.
"Screw you," he spat.
Naomi pressed the steel edge a fraction of an inch harder against his bone. "You're Arthur Vance’s nephews. The ones who didn't go to prison when the SEC seized the Boston accounts. You’re running errands for your cousin Celeste."
The man’s eyes widened in the gloom. That was all the confirmation Naomi needed.
"Tell Celeste that if she wants what’s in this safe, she’ll have to come and take it herself," Naomi said cold and low. "Now get your brother up, get in your car, and get off this property before I call the state police with the dashcam footage from the front gate."
The man struggled to his feet, gritting his teeth against the pain of his broken collarbone. He hauled his limp companion up by the collar, dragging him out through the French doors toward the garden terrace.
Naomi didn't watch them leave.
She turned to the safe. The digital keypad was dead, but the manual override slot was exposed. She slid Evelyn’s iron key into the tumbler, turned it three quarter-turns to the left, and pulled the heavy steel door open.
Inside lay three velvet jewelry boxes, several stacks of hundred-dollar bills, and a thick, yellowed manila envelope tied with red twine.
On the front of the envelope, in Evelyn’s sharp, boarding-school cursive, was written:
*Vale Meridian Trust – 1974 Original Execution & Vance Settlement Addendum.*
Naomi snatched the envelope, tucked it inside her coat, and locked the safe back up.
Just as she turned toward the hallway, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket.
It was a text from the lab tech at Greenwich Hospital.
May you like
*Immunoassay positive. Vecuronium analog detected. Level is lethal. Dr. Voss just left the building with Mr. Vale. They are heading toward the estate with local police to serve an emergency trespass warrant on you. Get out now.*
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