Chapter 6 - THE SKETCHBOOK THAT HELD A FORTUNE
My apartment was the last place I expected to become the center of a criminal investigation.
It was small.
The refrigerator hummed too loudly.
The living room window never closed properly.
And the carpet near the kitchen had a stain I couldn't afford to replace.
But inside that apartment was the black sketchbook my father had given me.
And Preston Hayes wanted it badly enough to break in.
Police officers reached the building before Roman and I arrived.
Preston was already gone.
So was my manager.
My apartment door stood open.
Drawers had been emptied.
Books were scattered across the floor.
The few photographs I owned lay face down.
I stepped inside and felt tears sting my eyes.
Everything I'd worked so hard to keep together had been violated.
Roman stood behind me.
"I'm sorry."
I shook my head.
"Don't apologize for what they did."
Then I hurried toward the bedroom.
The cardboard box beneath my bed was missing.
My stomach dropped.
"No."
I knelt.
Looked behind the dresser.
Opened the closet.
Nothing.
Roman approached.
"The sketchbook?"
"It's gone."
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
Then I remembered something.
My father had been careful with important documents.
He used to say that the best hiding place wasn't the darkest corner.
It was the place people assumed wasn't important.
I looked toward the kitchen.
There, hanging beside the refrigerator, was a cheap framed drawing.
One of my earliest architectural sketches.
I'd made it at seventeen.
A pencil drawing of our old family home.
Dad had framed it himself.
I carefully removed the backing.
Inside was a folded sheet of paper.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
It was an architectural drawing.
But not of our house.
Halcyon Tower.
The original basement blueprint.
Across the bottom, my father had written:
THE TRUTH IS UNDER LEVEL B4.
Roman stared.
"There's no B4 on the official plans."
I nodded.
"Exactly."
The drawing showed a concealed access corridor behind an elevator shaft.
It led toward a large underground chamber.
Roman traced the lines.
Then stopped.
"What is it?" I asked.
He pointed toward a handwritten note.
G.C. HAS THE SECOND KEY.
Gabriel Costa.
Roman's supposedly dead brother.
My hands trembled.
Then a message arrived from an unknown number.
A photograph.
It showed the black sketchbook opened on a desk.
Beside it lay a second blueprint.
And beneath the photograph was a sentence.
YOUR FATHER GAVE US THE WRONG BOOK.
Roman looked at me.
For the first time, he smiled.
"They don't have what they need."
But the next message erased his smile.
THEN WE'LL TAKE SOMETHING MORE VALUABLE.
The photograph attached showed my father beside a hospital window.
May you like
A hand rested on his shoulder.
And the person standing behind him was Preston Hayes.
