Chapter 4 - THE KEY FROM THE DESK
Grant refused to believe his father had betrayed the Vales.
“My father died for this family.”
Adrian said nothing.
“That photograph proves nothing.”
“No,” I said quietly.
Both men looked at me.
“It proves Elena believed one of three people betrayed her.”
Adrian.
Grant.
Dominic.
Grant’s father.
Technically four if you counted the person taking the photo.
Grant gave me a hard look.
“Stay out of this.”
Adrian’s voice changed instantly.
“She stays.”
Grant laughed once.
“Since when does a housekeeper sit in security meetings?”
“Since she found the note you missed for twenty-five years.”
Silence.
I should have felt victorious.
I didn’t.
Because Grant looked hurt.
That frightened me more than anger.
Adrian examined the brass key.
No markings except the number 214.
We checked the mansion.
No room 214.
No locker.
No cabinet.
Then I remembered something.
“There’s an old train station east of the property.”
Adrian looked at me.
“What about it?”
“It used to have storage lockers.”
Grant shook his head.
“Demolished.”
“Not all of it.”
I cleaned for Adrian, but I lived in the area.
I knew abandoned places because people with money forgot them long before everyone else did.
The old station had been partially converted into storage units.
Box 214 still existed.
We drove there that afternoon.
Adrian brought Grant and two security men.
I should not have gone.
He insisted.
“You’re already inside this.”
Not exactly romantic.
But true.
The key fit.
Locker 214 opened with a metallic click.
Inside was one black metal case.
My pulse quickened.
Adrian lifted it onto the floor.
Locked.
Grant crouched.
“Combination?”
I looked at the key.
“No.”
Then I remembered the desk.
1, 2, 3, 5, 8.
The first five Fibonacci numbers.
Adrian tried 12358.
The case opened.
Inside were accounting books.
Photographs.
Cassette tapes.
And a ledger wrapped in plastic.
The missing ledger.
Adrian opened it.
Page after page contained names, payments, routes, dates, judges, police officials, union contacts, shipping companies.
Evidence.
Enough to destroy people who had spent decades believing their secrets were buried.
Then Adrian froze.
“What?”
He pointed to one page.
A payment.
$400,000.
Recipient initials:
G.M.
Grant Mercer.
Grant took one look and went white.
“That’s not me.”
Adrian said nothing.
“It can’t be me.”
The date was twenty-three years earlier.
Grant would have been fifteen.
I exhaled.
“Then maybe it’s your father.”
Grant looked at me.
His father’s name had been Gregory Mercer.
G.M.
For one second, relief crossed his face.
Then Adrian turned the page.
Another payment.
Same initials.
May you like
Dated eight years ago.
Gregory Mercer had been dead for thirteen.
