Chapter 4 - UNIT 314
Victoria gave the phone number and storage address to the police. Detective Lena Ortiz, who had taken the case, studied the key.
“I’ll request a warrant and meet you there,” Ortiz said.
Emma caught Victoria’s sleeve. “Please don’t send me away.”
Victoria looked at Ortiz. “Can she stay with me until we locate her mother?”
“She can stay here with an officer while we make arrangements,” Ortiz said. “Right now, that’s the safest place for her.”
Emma hated it. Victoria could see that. She promised to return and waited until the officer brought Emma food and sat beside her.
At the Queens storage facility, Ortiz arrived with two officers and a warrant. Unit 314 was small, clean, and nearly empty. Three sealed boxes sat beneath a folded moving blanket.
The first held old Hale Development contracts. The second held bank records. In the third, Victoria found a scorched metal cash box.
Inside were photographs of an office gutted by fire.
Victoria recognized the room. It was her father’s records office in Brooklyn. Richard had told everyone a wiring fault destroyed it weeks after Caroline died.
On the back of one photograph, Caroline had written:
The fire was set on November 12. Ask Miles who ordered it.
The date made Victoria grip the photograph harder. November 12 was the night before Caroline’s car went into the river.
“Who’s Miles?” Ortiz asked.
“Evan Miles. My father’s security director.”
“Can we reach him?”
“He died three months ago.”
Ortiz found an envelope beneath the cash box. It contained a recent photograph of Evan outside a retirement home, speaking to a woman in a wheelchair. On the back was an address and a name: Nora Bell.
Victoria checked the date printed in the corner. The picture had been taken six weeks earlier.
Before she could speak, an officer called from the front desk. Someone had entered the facility behind them and asked which unit they were visiting.
May you like
The man gave his name as Daniel Cross.
By the time officers reached the entrance, he was gone. So was the security guard’s access card.
