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Empire Of Secrets

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for Sunday Whirl Wordle.
Here are Brenda’s prompt words:

wild ~ cross ~ left ~ staff ~ last ~ split
burial ~ grind ~ space ~ land ~ room ~ hood

Image by Me & ChatGPT

Detective Nadine Harrow pulled her hood up against the rain as she stood at the edge of the old burial ground. The last person to see Thomas Kade alive had been his own staff ….three employees who all gave conflicting stories.

She’d have to cross the property line onto Kade’s private fifteen acres of land to find answers. Inside the Kade mansion, one room stood locked: his study …. cold and untouched, an empty space in the corner where a safe once sat.

Kade’s business partnership with Harold Winston had split years ago, though few knew it. His accountant claimed the books were clean; Winston said otherwise, describing how Kade would grind every rival down, paranoid to the point of wild accusations.

Harrow found the safe’s combination left behind in the false bottom of a drawer …. child’s play for anyone patient enough to look.

She smiled. Some men build empires on secrets. Kade had buried his in plain sight.

NAR©2026
#Wordle

This is “Fake Empire” by The National

Wordle 767

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

27 thoughts on “Empire Of Secrets”

    1. Thanks, Tiffany. I’m glad you enjoyed the story and very pleased that the video played for you. There are copyright laws blocking videos which primarily affect overseas viewers; my readers here in the US were able to watch but those in the UK were not. It’s weird.

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          1. From this side of the pond it takes out a huge swathe of countries: most of Europe, some of Asia, the Caribbean. It might be different from there, though.

            Do try that link, it hasn’t failed me yet.

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            1. I checked a video I have scheduled; from here I see most blocked countries are in Asia and Africa. Cuba is blocked as well as a lot of little unfamiliar island locations. Europe, Australia South America are all good. A couple of videos I checked also came up as unlisted or no information given. I guess I’ll have to take my chances with those. I appreciate this testing site but I post a lot of videos and this is going to eat away at of my writing time. What a drag!

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              1. I’m glad you tried it and it gave you a result. I’ve never yet had one that showed as unlisted or no information though!

                The most unusual result I’ve had recently was a video unavailable across N America, as well as the usual suspects like Russia and N Korea. It was an American band, so I assumed it was copyright and found an alternative for the same song. It only takes a moment to check: how long did that take you, compared with the time you’ve spent responding to my inanities? 🤣

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