Chapter 5 - THE SIGNET
Ryan’s house did not look like the home of a man people whispered about.
That was Ivy’s first thought.
Her second was that this probably made it more dangerous.
The house sat behind live oaks on the Wilmington River, modern stone and dark glass softened by old trees. There were no gold gates, no marble lions, no dramatic initials carved into anything.
There were cameras Ivy could see.
Which meant there were probably 20 she could not.
Marcus met them at the front entrance.
His face told Ryan the answer before his mouth did.
“The ring is gone.”
Ryan walked past him.
Ivy followed.
Nobody told her not to.
Progress.
The alarm panel near the door showed no damage.
Neither did the locks.
The intruder had entered cleanly.
Ryan moved through the house with a silence that made the rooms feel temporary.
Ivy noticed details because that was what she did when nervous.
A stack of architecture books.
A piano nobody had dusted badly enough to suggest decoration.
A ceramic bowl repaired with a visible gold seam.
No family photographs in the hallway.
No awards.
No giant portrait of Ryan looking disappointed in future generations.
“You don’t decorate like a criminal mastermind,” she said.
Marcus made a sound somewhere behind them.
Ryan kept walking.
“How should a criminal mastermind decorate?”
“More red velvet. Possibly a shark tank.”
“I’ll speak to someone.”
Ivy stopped.
He had made a joke.
A dry, almost invisible joke, but still.
Ryan continued toward a study as if nothing unusual had happened.
Ivy followed with new suspicion.
The study had been searched carefully.
That was worse than Caroline’s apartment.
Nothing overturned.
Nothing broken.
Whoever entered had known what they wanted and where to look.
The old walnut desk stood near a set of windows facing the river.
One drawer was open.
Ryan stopped in front of it.
“My father’s.”
Ivy stayed beside him.
“The desk?”
“Yes.”
“You kept it.”
He gave her a look.
“People keep things.”
“I know.”
Her tone softened before she could stop it.
Ryan reached into the drawer and removed a square velvet box.
Empty.
The indentation inside showed the shape of a heavy ring.
“The signet,” Ivy said.
He nodded.
Marcus stood in the doorway.
“House system shows entry at 7:12. Alarm disarmed with a valid code.”
“How many people know it?” Ivy asked.
Ryan looked at him.
Marcus answered.
“4.”
“Ryan, you, Leo…”
“And Ethan Shaw.”
Ivy thought of the lawyer whose name Ryan had used since the first hour they met.
“Not Victor?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Code changed 6 months ago.”
“Could he get it?”
“Anything can be obtained.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Leo entered holding a tablet.
“Exterior cameras went into maintenance loop for 11 minutes.”
Ryan’s eyes hardened.
“Remote?”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
“System says internal administrator access.”
Marcus swore quietly.
Ivy looked between them.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” Ryan said, “someone with legitimate access opened my house for someone else.”
“Your lawyer?”
“Or Marcus. Or Leo.”
Neither man reacted defensively.
That told Ivy something too.
Ryan turned toward them.
“Phones.”
They handed them over immediately.
Ivy blinked.
“You can do that?”
Marcus said, “He can ask.”
“And you just hand over your phones?”
Leo shrugged.
“If I were betraying him, I’d use a different phone.”
Ivy looked at Ryan.
“Your employees are unsettling.”
“So I’m told.”
Ryan checked location histories, call records, and security apps without apology.
Marcus had been at Ellis Square during the break-in.
Leo too.
Ethan had been at the courthouse until 6:55.
After that, his phone showed no location for 24 minutes.
Ryan stared at the screen.
“Battery?” Marcus asked.
“According to the log, phone powered off.”
Ivy leaned against the desk.
“Convenient.”
Ryan handed the phones back.
He called Ethan.
No answer.
Again.
Voicemail.
Marcus was already moving toward the hall.
Ryan said, “Find him. Quietly.”
Marcus left.
Ivy watched Ryan close the empty ring box.
“You think Ethan did it.”
“I think Ethan is unaccounted for during the only 24 minutes that matter.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Ryan looked toward the river.
“Ethan has represented me for 14 years.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
He turned back.
Ivy held his gaze.
“You sound hurt.”
Something in his expression closed.
“I don’t confuse business with emotion.”
“That is an impressively emotional answer.”
Ryan’s mouth tightened.
Ivy should have stopped.
She rarely did.
“People betray businesses all the time. Betrayal only hurts when you thought it was a person.”
He stared at her long enough that she wondered whether she had crossed a line.
Then he said, “You paint too much.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“You look at people as if everything is visible.”
“Not everything.”
“What isn’t?”
Ivy looked at him.
“Usually the thing they are trying hardest to hide.”
Ryan’s phone buzzed.
The moment ended.
Not disappeared.
Ended.
There was a difference.
Leo began examining the desk.
“The intruder only opened this drawer?”
Ryan nodded.
“Nothing else appears disturbed.”
Ivy circled the desk.
Old furniture had personalities.
Not because wood remembered things, as sentimental people liked to say, but because human hands created repeated wear.
The right drawer handle was smoother than the left.
A pale mark showed where Ryan’s father had once kept a lamp.
Along the inside edge near the knee space, a series of scratches ran horizontally.
Ivy crouched.
“Did your father wear a watch?”
Ryan looked down.
“Yes.”
“Right wrist?”
“Left.”
“Then these aren’t from a watch.”
She ran a finger near the scratches without touching them.
“They’re too even.”
Leo crouched beside her.
“Tool marks?”
“Maybe.”
Ryan came around.
Ivy knocked lightly on the wood.
Solid.
Then again, farther back.
Hollow.
She smiled despite herself.
“Your family desperately needs normal hobbies.”
Ryan knelt and examined the panel.
There was a recessed spring catch nearly invisible beneath the lip.
He pressed it.
A narrow compartment opened.
Inside lay a single folded freight manifest.
No signet.
No money.
No dramatic confession.
Just paper.
Ryan unfolded it on the desk.
The document was 13 years old.
ADLER MARITIME SERVICES.
Outbound Transfer.
Truck 314.
Dock 22.
Storage Building 6.
Container 17.
Ivy pulled Lena’s strip of paper from her pocket.
314.
22.
6.
17.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Then Leo said, “Well.”
Ivy looked at him.
“That may be the first normal reaction anyone around Ryan has had all day.”
Ryan read the manifest line by line.
The cargo description said restoration materials.
Weight: 3,800 pounds.
Declared value: $18,400.
Destination: Marrow House Gallery.
But the date stopped him.
June 13.
1 day before Gabriel Adler died.
Ryan’s thumb pressed flat against the paper.
“My father signed this.”
Ivy looked at the bottom.
2 signatures appeared.
Gabriel Adler.
And beneath his, another.
Victor Adler.
THE MAN WHO SIGNS LAST NEVER APPEARS FIRST.
Ivy stared.
“Victor signed last.”
“Yes.”
“But your mother’s note says he never appears first.”
“Meaning?” Leo asked.
Ivy thought of restoration records.
Layers.
Paintings changed when viewed under infrared or X-ray. The visible image was not always the first image.
“What if the first signature isn’t the first signature?” she said.
Ryan looked at her.
She pointed to Gabriel’s name.
“Can we verify the ink?”
Leo said, “Forensics can.”
“Because if Victor signed a blank document and someone added Gabriel later, or the other way around—”
Ryan finished the thought.
“The order matters.”
The door opened.
Marcus returned.
He was not alone.
Ethan Shaw walked beside him.
Ivy had expected a slippery lawyer because television had ruined realistic expectations.
Ethan looked ordinary.
Mid-40s.
Brown hair.
Glasses.
Dark suit with rain spots on one shoulder.
He looked tired rather than guilty.
Until he saw the freight manifest.
Then he looked terrified.
Ryan noticed.
“Where were you between 6:55 and 7:19?”
Ethan’s eyes stayed on the paper.
“At the courthouse parking garage.”
“Your phone was off.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Ethan swallowed.
“I was meeting someone.”
Marcus shut the study door.
“Who?” Ryan asked.
Ethan looked at Ivy.
“Not in front of her.”
Ivy laughed.
“Oh, I’m definitely staying now.”
Ryan’s voice cooled.
“Answer.”
Ethan removed his glasses.
“Victor.”
Silence.
Ryan’s face did not change.
Ivy’s did.
“Your uncle?”
Ethan nodded.
“He called me at 6:32. Told me to meet him privately.”
“What did he want?” Ryan asked.
“He asked whether you had found any old payments tied to Lena Sanders.”
Ivy’s stomach tightened.
Ryan stepped closer.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you had.”
Marcus muttered something under his breath.
Ethan raised a hand.
“I did not give him details. I thought he already knew. He said he was worried you were digging into Gabriel’s old enemies.”
“You turned off your phone.”
“He told me his driver was being watched and asked that the meeting stay off records.”
Ryan’s gaze became colder.
“And you agreed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he helped raise you. Because he is chairman of half your boards. Because until this exact moment I had no reason to think meeting Victor Adler required permission from you.”
That answer was brave.
Or desperate.
Ivy could not yet tell.
Ryan placed the manifest on the desk.
“Have you seen this?”
Ethan looked down.
His face went pale.
“No.”
“Do you know what Truck 314 moved?”
“No.”
“Do you know what was in Container 17?”
“No.”
“Do you know why my father died the next day?”
Ethan looked at him.
“No.”
Ryan stepped even closer.
“Then tell me something you do know.”
Ethan hesitated.
Ivy saw fear in him now.
Not fear of Ryan.
Fear of saying the next thing.
Finally he reached inside his briefcase.
Marcus’s hand moved toward his jacket.
Ethan froze.
“Paper.”
Ryan nodded.
Ethan removed a sealed envelope.
“Victor gave me this.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“What is it?”
“He told me to open it only if you asked about June 14.”
Ryan took the envelope.
The front carried his name in Victor’s handwriting.
RYAN.
He opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Old.
Glossy.
Taken inside Marrow House.
Gabriel Adler stood beside Lena Sanders.
Ivy’s knees nearly weakened.
Her mother looked younger than Ivy remembered her.
Curly hair loose around her shoulders.
Paint on her shirt.
Gabriel held a wooden crate.
Victor stood behind them.
Caroline was near the edge of the frame.
And beside Victor stood a fifth man.
Ivy recognized him immediately.
She had seen his photograph in newspapers.
Lorenzo Vale.
Ryan’s current rival.
13 years younger.
Smiling.
On the back of the photograph, Victor had written 1 sentence.
ASK LORENZO WHO LIT THE MATCH.
Ryan read it.
Then he looked at Ethan.
“Why give me this now?”
Ethan’s voice was quiet.
“I asked Victor the same thing.”
“What did he say?”
Ethan swallowed.
“He said because the woman in the photograph has a daughter who paints what other people fail to see.”
Ivy felt every eye move toward her.
May you like
Ethan continued.
“And he said Lorenzo Vale knows that now too.”
