Chapter 2 - THE FILE HIS FATHER HID
Ethan had always been told his father died from a sudden heart attack.
Charles Blackwood had been sixty-one.
Healthy.
Disciplined.
Still running six miles every Sunday morning.
The death had shocked everyone.
Vincent Hale had been the man who organized the funeral.
He had stood beside Ethan during the burial.
He had helped Margaret through probate.
He had even delivered the eulogy.
Now Margaret was saying Charles had been investigating him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Margaret looked down.
“Because I was afraid.”
Ethan stared at his mother.
“Of Vincent?”
“Of what would happen to you.”
Vanessa laughed quietly.
Everyone looked at her.
She leaned against the marble counter as if she were suddenly an audience member instead of a suspect.
“Go ahead.”
“Tell him.”
Margaret’s face hardened.
Vanessa tilted her head.
“He deserves to know what his perfect family buried.”
Agent Beck stepped between them.
“Mrs. Blackwood, don’t engage with her.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
“She’s right about one thing.”
Ethan waited.
Margaret took a slow breath.
“Three days before your father died, he gave me a key.”
“What key?”
“He told me if anything happened to him, I was never to give it to Vincent.”
“Where is it?”
Margaret looked toward the hallway.
“In my room.”
Vanessa’s head snapped up.
It was subtle.
But Agent Beck noticed.
So did Ethan.
“You searched for it,” Ethan said.
Vanessa remained silent.
Margaret nodded.
“She did.”
“Almost every night.”
Claire looked shocked.
“How did you know?”
Margaret glanced at her.
“Because I wasn’t always asleep.”
Vanessa’s lips pressed together.
Margaret continued.
“After my stroke, everyone assumed I didn’t understand what was happening around me.”
“That became useful.”
A federal agent accompanied Ethan, Margaret, and Claire upstairs.
Vanessa remained in the kitchen under supervision.
Margaret’s bedroom looked exactly as Ethan remembered.
Soft gray walls.
Family photographs.
A reading chair beside the window.
A medical bed near the balcony.
Nothing appeared unusual.
Margaret pointed toward an old framed photograph of Charles hanging above the dresser.
“Behind that.”
Ethan removed the frame.
Nothing.
He looked at his mother.
“Push the lower left corner.”
He did.
A narrow panel opened inside the wall.
Claire gasped.
Inside was a small brass key wrapped in yellowed paper.
Ethan unfolded the paper.
His father’s handwriting covered one side.
Ethan,
If you are reading this, I was not given enough time.
Do not trust the documents.
Trust the numbers.
V.H. knows where the money went.
But he does not know what I copied.
Locker 318.
Union Station.
Ethan read it twice.
Agent Beck photographed the note.
“Your father wrote this?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Margaret did.
“The week he died.”
Ethan looked at her.
“He told me he’d discovered money missing from three development funds.”
“How much?”
“At the time?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Almost twelve million dollars.”
Claire stared at her.
“And nobody reported it?”
“Charles planned to.”
“Then he died.”
Agent Beck immediately raised her phone.
“I want Union Station security and a warrant request.”
Ethan held up the key.
“After eight years, you think the locker is still there?”
Margaret gave him a strange look.
“It isn’t a public locker.”
“What is it?”
“Your father rented a private deposit compartment through a storage company beneath the station.”
Agent Beck looked surprised.
“You knew?”
“I knew where.”
“I didn’t know what he put inside.”
Ethan looked again at the note.
V.H. knows where the money went.
Vincent Hale.
His father had been warning him from the grave.
Claire suddenly moved toward the nightstand.
“Wait.”
She pointed underneath.
A small red light blinked.
Agent Beck immediately approached.
A listening device.
Someone had been monitoring Margaret’s bedroom.
Ethan’s stomach dropped.
“How long has that been there?”
Claire shook her head.
“I clean around this table every day.”
“That wasn’t there yesterday.”
Agent Beck carefully removed the device.
Then her phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed almost immediately.
“What do you mean the station compartment was accessed?”
Ethan stepped closer.
Agent Beck listened.
“When?”
She looked at Ethan.
“Twenty-three minutes ago.”
Everyone went still.
“By who?” Ethan asked.
Agent Beck ended the call.
“The access card belongs to Vincent Hale.”
Ethan looked at the brass key in his hand.
Vincent had moved first.
But he had made one mistake.
May you like
He didn’t know Ethan now had the real key.
And whatever Charles Blackwood had hidden eight years earlier, Vincent was desperate enough to retrieve it while federal agents were already closing in.
