Chapter 5

Eris lifted the cloth and shone the light underneath. “Nothing—just a solid stone recess. Hiding a multitude of spider webs, but no secret passage.”

She raised the beam to the wall above the altar. There were three words carved there, in large uppercase letters, each word on a line of its own. She read them out loud: “Veritas fugit pecuniam.”

“Sounds like Latin,” Roxy said. “Any idea what it means?”

Eris frowned, looking at the words again. “I think it means something like ‘truth flies from money.’ Maybe it’s the Drake family motto.”

“Truth flies from money?” Roxy pondered for a moment. “I guess that means if you’ve got enough money, you don’t have to worry about the truth.”

“Very appropriate,” Eris agreed. “That’s what I think happened with Veronica Parker. I think Hamilton Drake murdered her, then paid off the local authorities to look the other way.”

Roxy nodded. “It doesn’t get us any closer to your secret passage, though. Say—is there anything in that box?”