Chapter 4 - EIGHT MINUTES EARLY
By the time Roman's men reached my cottage, the front door was hanging open.
Every drawer had been emptied.
Mattresses slashed.
Cabinet doors ripped off.
Lily's clothes were scattered across the living-room floor.
Daniel's photographs had been pulled from frames and stepped on.
The metal box was gone.
I stood in the doorway with my hands over my mouth.
Roman had ordered me to remain inside the main house.
I ignored him.
For once, nobody tried to stop me.
Tomas searched the bedroom while Roman studied the broken lock.
“What was in the box?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
“You never opened it?”
“I couldn't.”
“What kind of lock?”
“A round keyhole.”
“Did Daniel give you a key?”
“No.”
I stared at the empty place beneath the closet shelf.
“Police returned the box after the fire. They said it was found in his office locker.”
Roman's eyes narrowed.
“Did anyone from Hail Continental know you had it?”
“I assumed the company did.”
“Who delivered his belongings?”
I closed my eyes, reaching backward through grief.
There had been flowers everywhere.
Casseroles.
People whispering.
Lily crying because every adult kept trying to hold her.
A company representative had come by.
Someone in a dark coat.
I had signed papers.
“Adrian Pike.”
Roman's expression sharpened.
“Adrian delivered them?”
“Yes.”
That explained why the attorney had looked pale when Roman discovered the forged accident report.
Roman turned to Tomas.
“Find Pike.”
“He's still detained in the west office.”
“Search his phone.”
“We need authorization?”
Roman gave him a look.
Tomas nodded once.
“Right.”
I almost would have smiled if my dead husband's life hadn't suddenly become the center of something terrifying.
Lily tugged my hand.
“Mommy, my car.”
She looked around.
Her red toy car was gone.
My chest tightened.
“Where did you leave it?”
“Library.”
Roman and I looked at each other.
The car had been with Lily during the crash.
With her during the shooting.
With her while Roman questioned us.
Felix had seen it.
Had he recognized it?
We hurried back toward the main house.
Halfway across the courtyard, an engine roared somewhere beyond the trees.
Roman immediately pushed Lily and me behind a stone planter.
Tomas's guards raised rifles.
A black SUV emerged from the service road.
It stopped abruptly.
The driver's door opened.
One of Roman's men stumbled out.
Blood covered his shirt.
Tomas ran toward him.
“What happened?”
The guard collapsed against the vehicle.
“East tunnel.”
Roman's face changed.
“What tunnel?”
“Old utility tunnel under the chapel.”
Roman swore.
The guard grabbed his sleeve.
“Voss knew the codes.”
“Of course he did.”
“He wasn't alone.”
“Who?”
The guard struggled to stay conscious.
“Didn't see.”
Then he said something that made Roman go perfectly still.
“They took Pike.”
Adrian Pike had been a prisoner.
Now Felix had broken him out.
So the lawyer had never been Felix's victim.
He was his partner.
Roman looked toward the hill where the old stone chapel stood behind Blackridge.
“Tomas, lock the estate. Nobody leaves.”
“Already done.”
“No. I mean nobody. Board members, family, staff. Anyone who objects can explain themselves to me.”
Tomas nodded.
Roman turned to me.
“You're going back inside.”
“I'm coming with you.”
“No.”
“They destroyed my home.”
“Which is exactly why you're staying somewhere I can protect you.”
“You didn't protect Daniel.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Roman flinched.
Barely.
But he did.
I hated that some part of me regretted saying it.
He stepped closer.
“I didn't know he needed me.”
“And now?”
“Now I know you do.”
For a second, everything around us disappeared.
The guards.
The rain.
The shattered car still being photographed near the gates.
Roman's voice dropped.
“I can survive another truck, Mara.”
His gaze moved to Lily.
“She might not.”
That ended the argument.
We returned to the library.
The red car was exactly where Lily had left it beneath the sofa.
She snatched it up immediately.
“My car.”
Roman crouched beside her.
“May I see it?”
Lily pulled it against her chest.
“No.”
“Lily,” I said.
“No, Mommy.”
Roman didn't insist.
Instead he reached into his pocket.
He removed his silver signet ring.
Then he placed it on the carpet.
“You can hold this while I look at the car.”
Lily considered the trade.
Three-year-old economics.
Finally she handed him the toy.
Roman examined it.
It was cheap.
Paint scratched.
One wheel crooked.
He turned it over.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He traced the rear axle.
“This screw isn't original.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“My father collected model cars. I spent half my childhood taking them apart.”
He asked Tomas for a pocketknife.
Carefully, Roman loosened the tiny screw.
The plastic base separated.
Something metallic fell onto his palm.
A tiny brass key.
I stared.
Lily clapped.
“Treasure!”
Roman and I looked at each other.
Daniel had hidden a key inside his daughter's toy car.
For two years, Lily had carried it everywhere.
Even Felix's men had never known.
“What does it open?” I whispered.
Roman studied the number stamped into the brass.
317.
Tomas looked over his shoulder.
“I know that numbering system.”
Roman already did.
“Old Harbor Freight Depot.”
The depot had been closed four years earlier after Hail Continental moved most operations to a new facility south of the city.
“Locker 317,” Tomas said.
Roman stood.
My heart hammered.
“If Daniel hid the key, what's inside the locker?”
Roman stared at it.
“Something he expected someone to kill him for.”
The library phone rang.
Everybody froze.
Roman answered.
No greeting.
A distorted male voice came through the speaker.
“You should've died at the gate.”
Roman's face became stone.
The caller continued.
“And the woman should have learned from her husband.”
My knees weakened.
Roman's eyes locked onto mine.
Then the voice said, “Locker 317 is empty.”
My blood went cold.
A pause.
“And if you go looking for what used to be inside it, the next report we write won't blame the little girl for a car accident.”
Lily was sitting on the carpet, spinning Roman's signet ring around one finger.
The caller laughed softly.
“It'll explain why her mother couldn't keep her alive.”
The line went dead.
Roman lowered the phone.
No one moved.
Then Tomas spoke.
“If they know about the locker, they know about the key.”
Roman looked at Lily's red car.
“No.”
His expression darkened.
“They know about the locker because somebody already tried to open it.”
May you like
He closed his hand around the brass key.
“And if it were really empty, they wouldn't be threatening us not to go.”
