Chapter 13 - UNDER THE FLOOR
The old terminal had flooded when Dominic was nineteen.
His father had lost three years of paper records.
Afterward, he installed a raised floor and a sealed storage room beneath the accounting office.
“Vincent knows it exists,” Dominic said. “But he thinks it was emptied when we went digital.”
“Was it?” Brooks asked.
“No. My father never trusted a screen.”
Celia had overseen the digital transition.
She might know too.
They could not assume otherwise.
Brooks sought an emergency order to preserve the property while her team prepared the search.
Dominic called the buyer’s representative.
The number no longer worked.
At the witness apartment, Hannah received a message from Celia.
A photograph of a birth certificate.
Grace’s.
The father’s space was blank.
Then a second image.
A draft petition questioning Hannah’s fitness and alleging she had exposed her child to organized crime.
The message beneath it was short.
You can still choose a quiet life.
Hannah sent everything to her attorney and Brooks.
Then she sat on the kitchen floor beside Grace because her knees would no longer hold her.
Her daughter crawled into her lap.
That was all.
No understanding. No fear of legal language. Just the certainty that her mother was where safety lived.
Hannah kissed her hair.
“They don’t get to use you.”
At the terminal, investigators found the outer gate chained.
Inside, a demolition crew was already unloading equipment.
The supervisor waved a work order.
“We’re cleared to start.”
Brooks showed him the preservation order.
“You’re cleared to stop.”
Dominic led the team through a side entrance.
Smoke damage streaked the counting-room walls.
The steel cabinet lay on its side.
He stopped beside an old radiator and pressed the floor latch with his shoe.
Nothing.
He knelt.
The latch had been welded shut.
Fresh metal.
Someone knew.
A technician brought cutting equipment.
While they worked, Dominic’s phone vibrated.
Vincent.
Brooks nodded for him to answer.
“You always did need help opening things,” Vincent said.
“Where are you?”
“Ask your lawyer.”
“Celia isn’t my lawyer.”
“She was never yours.”
The cutter stopped.
Below the raised floor sat rows of metal storage boxes.
And a fresh red plastic can.
The sharp smell reached Dominic a second later.
Gasoline.
Brooks ordered everyone back.
A crash sounded at the rear of the building.
May you like
Then an engine started on the other side of the wall.
Someone had brought a machine to finish what the fire had started.
