CHAPTER 8 — MY FATHER’S WARNING
CHAPTER 8 — MY FATHER’S WARNING
I read the sentence twice.
Then a third time.
Do not trust your mother.
The cold deepened around us.
Chloe stood behind my shoulder.
“What does it say?”
I folded the letter.
“Nothing useful.”
She watched me carefully.
“You’re lying.”
“So are you.”
“I’ve told you the truth since the bank.”
“Only because Kerr turned on you.”
She looked away.
The warehouse speakers came alive again.
“Seven minutes, Elena.”
Kerr sounded amused.
I slid Dad’s letter into my pocket.
There had to be more.
My father would never leave a warning without an explanation.
Unless the explanation was in the original evidence buried with him.
The second door on the left stood slightly open.
I pushed it with the metal bar.
Inside, the control office was empty.
Old monitors lined one wall. Grainy camera feeds showed the loading floor, the freezer corridor, and the exterior parking lot.
The tactical team was cutting through the side wall now.
One screen displayed Kerr.
He stood in a lower-level room surrounded by pipes and electrical panels.
The blue box was beside him.
A stack of papers burned inside a barrel.
“He’s destroying everything,” Chloe whispered.
“Not everything.”
I pointed toward the monitor.
Kerr had removed the cassette tapes and leather notebook.
He needed them.
That meant they contained something he couldn’t simply destroy.
A keypad controlled the loading door.
Chloe entered a six-digit code.
Red light.
She tried another.
Red again.
“He changed it.”
“Can you override it?”
“There’s a manual release in the freezer level.”
“Of course there is.”
The temperature display fell to four degrees Celsius.
Then three.
My fingers were already stiffening.
I searched the desk.
Receipts.
Medication logs.
Copies of guardianship petitions.
Patient names.
Dozens of them.
Some marked COMPLETED.
Others marked PENDING.
I photographed every page.
One file caught my attention.
MARGARET VANCE — FINAL TRANSFER
Inside was a schedule.
Property liquidation.
Insurance changes.
Facility commitment.
Then a final line:
Medical event anticipated within 30 days.
Chloe covered her mouth.
“What does that mean?”
“You know exactly what it means.”
“No.”
“You helped create this.”
“I never saw that file.”
“Your signature is on page three.”
She looked.
Her name appeared beneath a medication authorization.
Her face crumpled.
“Julian said it was for anxiety treatment.”
“You signed without reading it?”
“I signed everything he gave me.”
“That does not make you innocent.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
My voice echoed through the small office.
“I don’t need you to know. I need you to tell me what else you did.”
Chloe’s breathing became ragged.
She lowered herself into a chair.
“There was a life insurance policy.”
“How much?”
“Five million dollars.”
“Who was the beneficiary?”
“Julian.”
“And you?”
“Secondary.”
The room went silent.
There it was.
The real motive.
Not only control.
Not only inheritance.
A scheduled death.
I picked up the file.
“We’re taking this.”
A warning light flashed over the door.
EMERGENCY LOCK IN FIVE MINUTES.
I searched the control panel.
A diagram showed the manual release beneath Freezer Room B.
We left the office and headed downstairs.
The stairwell walls were covered in frost.
At the bottom, the corridor split in two.
One direction led toward the machinery room where Kerr waited.
The other led toward Freezer Room B.
“We separate,” Chloe said.
“No.”
“You need the release. I can distract him.”
“You think one confession changes what you are?”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“But maybe one useful thing changes what happens to your mother.”
I looked at her.
For the first time, she wasn’t trying to manipulate me.
She looked defeated.
Maybe that was why I believed her.
Or maybe I was simply out of time.
I gave her the metal bar.
“Do not confront him.”
She nodded.
“Go toward the machinery room. Make noise. Then hide.”
“And you?”
“I open the warehouse.”
She turned away.
I grabbed her arm.
“Chloe.”
She looked back.
“If you warn him—”
“I won’t.”
“If you run—”
“I won’t.”
“If you lie again—”
“I know.”
I released her.
She moved down the left corridor.
I headed right.
Freezer Room B was secured by a wheel lock.
I gripped it with both hands.
It barely moved.
The cold burned through my skin.
Behind me, metal crashed.
Chloe shouted.
Then Kerr yelled, “Where is she?”
I pulled harder.
The wheel shifted one inch.
The timer sounded.
Three minutes.
A gunshot echoed from the other corridor.
Then Chloe screamed.
I abandoned the wheel and ran toward the sound.
I found her on the floor beside the machinery room door.
Kerr stood over her.
His gun pointed at her chest.
May you like
He looked at me and smiled.
“I knew you’d choose the wrong woman.”
