Chapter 4 - Father's FavoriteHelen refused to explain over the phone.

“Come to Denver.”

“Helen.”

“Not electronically. Not by telephone. In my office.”

Ethan stood beside the lodge window.

“That sounds dramatic.”

“It isn’t drama.”

“Then what is it?”

“Your father.”

That was usually the same thing.

Ethan returned to Denver the next morning.

Nia said she would remain in the mountains because investigators were still interviewing members of the expedition.

Marcus stayed too.

Claire accompanied the damaged rope to the laboratory in Boulder.

For the first time since the accident, Ethan was alone.

He drove through the gates of the Blake estate shortly after sunset.

The house looked exactly as it had when Victor was alive.

Twenty-one thousand square feet of limestone, glass and old money Victor had spent forty years pretending he had been born into.

Ethan entered through the kitchen.

Mrs. Alvarez, the housekeeper who had worked for the family since Ethan was ten, hugged him.

“I heard about the mountain.”

“I’m okay.”

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

She touched his cheek.

“Your father used to say the same thing after you climbed.”

Ethan smiled.

Then his eyes caught a photograph on the wall.

Nia at seventeen.

Ethan at twelve.

Victor standing between them.

Victor’s hand rested on Ethan’s shoulder.

Not Nia’s.

The image suddenly felt like evidence.

Ethan remembered something he had spent years refusing to see.

Victor had loved them differently.

Nia was expected to be competent.

Ethan was allowed to fail.

Nia finished first in her MBA program.

Victor said, “Good.”

Ethan barely graduated after switching majors twice.

Victor threw him a party.

Nia negotiated a $40 million industrial acquisition at twenty-nine.

Victor called it “solid.”

Ethan landed his first development deal at thirty.

Victor put his photograph in the company lobby.

At dinner that night, Ethan walked through the old library.

Nia’s childhood trophies stood inside a lower cabinet.

His were displayed above the fireplace.

He felt sick.

His phone rang.

Claire.

“The preliminary analysis is back.”

Ethan gripped the phone.

“And?”

“The rope was cut.”

Silence.

“Are they sure?”

“Yes.”

“How sure?”

“The inner fibers show blade compression and clean severance before tensile failure. Someone partially cut it, then left enough intact to hold temporarily.”

Ethan sat down.

“So someone tried to kill me.”

Claire did not soften it.

“Yes.”

“Could it have happened days earlier?”

“Possible, but unlikely.”

“Why?”

“The exposed fibers had no meaningful contamination or weathering. The cut was fresh.”

Ethan closed his eyes.

The climbing party.

Nia.

Marcus.

Claire.

Two assistants.

“That doesn’t prove who.”

“No.”

“Did the sheriff get the report?”

“They will.”

Ethan ended the call.

He sat in his father’s chair.

On Victor’s desk, someone had left a brass letter opener shaped like a mountain peak.

Ethan stared at it.

A memory came.

Three months before Victor died, Ethan had overheard an argument in this room.

Nia had been shouting.

“You don’t get to use me for thirty years and hand him the keys because he smiles like you.”

Victor responded quietly.

“This isn’t about Ethan.”

“Everything is about Ethan.”

“You don’t understand what I’m protecting.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can’t.”

Nia had stormed out.

Ethan had entered.

Victor had been trembling.

“What was that about?”

Victor looked at him.

“Your sister has chosen someone dangerous.”

“Who?”

Victor did not answer.

Ethan had assumed he meant one of Nia’s former boyfriends.

Now he remembered Marcus had been fired from Blake Meridian only four months before that conversation.

Helen Ward’s office occupied the top floor of an old brick building in downtown Denver.

Ethan arrived at nine the next morning.

Helen locked the door.

Then she removed a sealed envelope from a safe.

“Your father instructed me not to show you this unless three conditions occurred.”

“What conditions?”

“He died.”

Ethan nodded.

“You became trustee.”

“Yes.”

“And there was reason to believe someone might attempt to accelerate a survivorship transfer.”

Ethan stopped breathing.

Helen placed the envelope between them.

Across the front was Victor Blake’s handwriting.

For Ethan, if Nia ever tries to take control through my death—or yours.

Ethan looked up.

“He knew?”

Helen’s expression was grim.

“He was afraid.”

Ethan reached for the envelope.

Helen placed her hand over it.

“There’s something you need to understand before you read that letter.”

“What?”

“Your father didn’t change the trust because he preferred you.”

Ethan thought of Nia’s trophies hidden in the lower cabinet.

“Then why?”

Helen removed her hand.

“Because three years ago, someone stole almost nine million dollars from Blake Meridian.”

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Ethan stared at her.

“And your father believed Nia helped him do it.”