I stayed quiet and called the police. Hours later, a mysterious message revealed the name of the girl’s missing father—and changed everything…

Dr. Tillman examined Jasper and left a new box of medication.

“Try to rest.”

By midnight, the house was quiet.

Renee and Hattie hid in the walk-in closet with a phone recording.

Jasper pretended to sleep.

One o’clock passed.

Then two.

At 3:07, the board in the hallway creaked.

The door opened.

Checkered slippers appeared on the rug.

A figure moved to the nightstand.

Jasper kept his eyes barely open.

A hand opened the box.

Then he caught a medicinal smell.

Not peppermint.

When the figure turned toward the lamp, Jasper recognized the face of Dr. Howard Tillman.

He opened his eyes and seized the doctor’s wrist.

The doctor dropped the packet he was carrying.

Renee came out of the closet, recording everything.

Howard didn’t even try to run.

He sat down.

And began to cry.

For years he had piled up enormous debts from failed ventures and gambling.

Months earlier, someone had bought all of those debts.

Then photographs started arriving of his daughter, a college student in Boston.

The young woman entering her apartment.

Leaving class.

Having coffee.

Alongside them came instructions.

Switch certain pills.

Don’t ask.

Don’t talk.

“I don’t know who it is,” Howard kept saying. “I’ve never seen his face.”

Jasper watched him without blinking.

The confession seemed to close the circle.

Until Hattie came out of the closet.

She stared at the doctor’s slippers for several seconds.

Then she slowly shook her head.

“It’s not him.”

Renee turned.

“Hattie…”

“The other man drags his left foot a little.”

The girl walked across the room, imitating the sound.

“And he comes more nights. This man only came some of them.”

Howard raised his head.

He confessed that his instructions had him enter only on certain Tuesdays.

But someone else had been replacing the pills too.

There were two people.

One forced into it.

And another who wanted to make sure personally that Jasper didn’t live to sign the will.

Howard’s phone buzzed.

Hidden number.

The message read:

“Why is he still alive? Tomorrow I’ll finish the job. The girl is in the way too.”

For the first time, Jasper felt real panic.

Not for himself.

For Hattie.

The next morning, he went down the thirty-nine steps leaning on the banister while Hattie walked beside him, counting them out loud.

Odessa nearly dropped a tray when she saw him.

The guards thought Jasper could barely sit up, and yet he was standing.

The attorney was sent back.

Howard was held until the sheriff’s deputies arrived.

Then Jasper called in Travis.

His brother walked into the study with shaking hands.

Jasper laid the anonymous note used to accuse Renee on the desk.

“Who paid off your debts?”

Travis denied it.

Jasper repeated the question.

Finally his brother broke down.

A year earlier he had lost an enormous sum gambling.

He hadn’t dared tell Jasper.

Lyle had shown up one day and paid everything.

He asked for nothing.

He only said:

“Someday this house will be yours. Then you’ll remember who stood by you.”

Travis began to cry.

He also confessed that Lyle had planted his suspicions against Renee.

He had reminded him that Eddie Ames disappeared working for the Kincaids and that his widow might hold a grudge.

Jasper rose slowly.

Suddenly he remembered the bottle Lyle had left beside his bed.

He asked Odessa to bring it.

The housekeeper came back without it.

“It’s gone.”

“Where’s Lyle?”

Odessa looked confused.

“He left an hour ago.”

Then she added:

“He took Hattie to school.”

The silence that followed was unbearable.

Renee appeared in the doorway.

“What did you say?”

Odessa explained that Lyle had found the girl eating breakfast.

He told her Renee was busy and that he could drop her at school.

Hattie trusted him.

He always handed out candy to the workers.

Renee dropped the keys she was holding.

Jasper ran to get the old phone from the safe.

There was a message.

“Old pier at Dover Bluff. Come alone. If I see one of your men, the girl will meet the same end as her father.”

Renee read those words.

Her face changed.

“Bring her back to me.”

Nothing more.

Jasper then called the sheriff’s office.

For years his family had lived by avoiding any cooperation with them.

That morning, he told them exactly where he was going.

Then he drove alone to an old abandoned pier beside the marshes.

He found a small wooden boat.

Lyle was inside.

Hattie sat beside the helm, wrapped in a blanket.

She wasn’t crying.

She was counting the pilings of the dock under her breath.

Lyle looked tired.

He didn’t look like a monster.

That was precisely the worst part.

“Get in,” he ordered.

Jasper obeyed.

“Why?”

Lyle gave a sad smile.

“Because you want to destroy everything your father and I built.”

The new will didn’t hand the businesses to Travis.

Jasper had decided to sell most of his maritime companies, shut down the shady operations inherited from decades past, and create a fund for the families of workers who had lost their lives at sea.