Chapter 4 - THE TUNNEL
The basement smelled of flour, old pipes, and damp concrete.
I moved a shelf away from the far wall and revealed a rusted metal door Hannah had never seen.
“Dad built this?” she asked.
“He said every honest man needs an exit when dishonest men own the front door.”
The pounding upstairs grew louder.
Daniel locked the basement behind us.
We entered the narrow tunnel.
It ran beneath the alley and ended inside the storage room of an abandoned laundromat two buildings away.
As we climbed out, I heard the diner’s alarm begin to scream.
Hannah turned back.
“They’ll destroy everything.”
“Things can be rebuilt.”
Daniel led us to an old blue sedan parked behind the laundromat.
“No tracking system,” he said. “No company registration.”
We drove south.
Thirty minutes later, we entered an underground parking garage beneath a downtown office building.
The elevator took us to the twenty:third floor.
A woman in a gray suit was waiting.
She was tall, sharp:eyed, and in her early sixties.
Hannah stopped.
“Judge Reynolds?”
Former federal judge Catherine Reynolds had eaten breakfast at my diner every Thursday for eleven years.
She always ordered two eggs, wheat toast, and coffee with no sugar.
I had never once asked why federal agents sometimes joined her.
Catherine looked at Hannah’s face.
All warmth vanished from her expression.
“Who did this?”
“Margaret Holloway,” I said. “Grant watched.”
Catherine motioned us inside.
Her conference table was already covered with files.
“I’ve been monitoring Holloway Select Markets for six months,” she said. “Not officially. Not yet.”
“Why?” Hannah asked.
“Because your husband’s family has been purchasing distressed food suppliers, forcing competitors into bankruptcy, and bribing inspectors.”
My diner flashed through my mind.
Grant’s threat about suppliers had not been empty.
Catherine inserted the memory card into an isolated computer.
Folders appeared.
Ledgers.
Audio recordings.
Video files.
Then one file began playing automatically.
Grant’s voice filled the room.
“If Hannah refuses to sign, my mother will handle her.”
Margaret answered,
“And if Evelyn interferes?”
Grant laughed.
“Then we burn the diner and blame faulty wiring.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
Catherine paused the recording.
Before anyone could speak, the conference room door opened.
A young assistant stood there, pale and breathless.
“Judge… the police are downstairs.”
“Why?”
“They have a warrant for Evelyn Carter.”
Hannah looked at me in horror.
The assistant swallowed.
May you like
“They’re saying she kidnapped her daughter.”
:::
