Chapter 8 - Someone Wants Morgan Towing Gone
The structural engineer arrived at Morgan Towing at eight the next morning.
By eight-ten, Riley knew the city closure was nonsense.
“There is settlement,” Dr. Aaron Patel said, kneeling beside a crack in the concrete. “But this did not happen suddenly.”
“How old?” Riley asked.
“Decades.”
“Dangerous?”
“Not in the way the notice suggests.”
Matteo stood behind her.
“Can the rear garage be safely entered?”
“With precautions.”
Riley smiled.
“Best sentence I’ve heard all week.”
Patrick did not share her enthusiasm.
He stood near the office with his cane, watching the engineers remove an old steel access plate beneath a workbench.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Your mother wouldn’t want you risking yourself.”
Riley turned.
“Mom left me the key.”
Patrick looked away.
“That means she wanted me to find something.”
Matteo approached.
“We go down, inspect, come back. Adrian stays at the entrance.”
Patrick looked at him.
“You’re not exactly reassuring.”
“I’m trying.”
“You need practice.”
“So I’ve been told.”
Riley almost smiled.
The engineers opened the plate.
Cold air rose from darkness.
A narrow stairway descended beneath the garage.
Connor shone a flashlight down.
“I have worked here my entire life.”
Patrick said, “You were told not to move the bench.”
Connor stared.
“That was why?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were weirdly sentimental about the bench.”
Riley clipped a flashlight to her jacket.
“You’re staying up.”
Connor objected immediately.
“Absolutely not.”
“One sibling underground is enough.”
“Why do you get to choose?”
“Because I own the company.”
“That is abuse of management authority.”
“File a complaint.”
“With who?”
“Me.”
Matteo stepped onto the stairs.
Riley followed.
The tunnel smelled of wet concrete and rust.
Old electrical conduits ran along one wall.
The passage was wider than Riley expected.
Wide enough for carts.
Maybe small vehicles.
Their flashlight beams moved across faded signs.
SERVICE ACCESS 3.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL.
The farther they walked, the more recent evidence appeared.
A newer cable.
Fresh scrape marks.
A discarded plastic water bottle.
Matteo picked it up.
“This isn’t twenty years old.”
Riley looked ahead.
“Someone’s been down here.”
They continued.
About two hundred yards from Morgan Towing, they reached a junction.
One passage had collapsed.
The other continued northeast.
Toward the old bank.
Then Riley noticed footprints.
Fresh.
“Matteo.”
“I see them.”
He raised one hand.
They stopped.
A sound echoed ahead.
Metal scraping.
Matteo moved slightly in front of Riley.
She immediately stepped beside him.
“If you tell me to stay behind you, I’m pushing you into the wall.”
“This is not the moment.”
“Then stop doing movie-star nonsense.”
He looked at her.
“Movie-star nonsense?”
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
A flashlight beam appeared around the corner.
Matteo became still.
Riley raised her own light.
“Hello?”
No answer.
The other light vanished.
Footsteps retreated.
“Hey!” Riley shouted.
Matteo ran.
Riley followed.
They rounded the corner.
A figure disappeared through a steel door at the far end.
Matteo reached it seconds later.
Locked.
Riley bent over catching her breath.
“Who was that?”
“No idea.”
Matteo examined the lock.
New.
Very new.
Riley looked upward.
“Where are we?”
Matteo checked the atlas photograph on his phone.
“Approximately beneath the old bank.”
Riley shone her flashlight across the wall.
Painted letters emerged beneath grime.
B2 ARCHIVE.
Her pulse accelerated.
“This is it.”
Matteo pulled the door.
Nothing.
Riley examined the frame.
Then she saw something on the floor.
A torn piece of paper.
She picked it up.
Only half a sentence remained.
...MORGAN RECOVERY, 11/14/01...
Matteo stared.
“Two days before my father died.”
Riley carefully placed it in a plastic evidence sleeve Dr. Patel had given them.
“We need inside.”
“Not today.”
She turned.
“What?”
“Someone knows we’re here.”
“So?”
“So we don’t know who’s waiting above that door.”
Riley hated that he was right.
They returned toward Morgan Towing.
Halfway back, Matteo stopped.
“What?”
He pointed to the wall.
A small black device had been mounted near the ceiling.
Camera.
Riley’s skin went cold.
“That wasn’t installed twenty years ago.”
“No.”
Someone had been watching the tunnel.
Watching them.
Matteo took out his phone.
“No signal.”
Riley looked toward the distant entrance.
“Move.”
They walked faster.
Then ran.
When they reached the ladder, Adrian was shouting above.
“Matteo!”
“What happened?”
“Fire!”
Riley climbed.
Smoke filled the rear garage.
Connor was dragging a hose across the floor.
A small fire burned near the records room.
Matteo grabbed an extinguisher.
Within minutes they had it under control.
No one was injured.
The damage was limited.
But the target was obvious.
The records cabinet.
Riley stared at blackened folders.
“Electrical?” she asked.
Dr. Patel shook his head.
“Not likely.”
Connor held up something.
A melted plastic bottle.
It smelled sharply of accelerant.
Patrick sat in the office doorway.
His face looked defeated.
“This is what I was afraid of.”
Riley knelt beside him.
“They didn’t get what they wanted.”
“Yet.”
“No.”
Patrick looked at her.
“You sound like your mother.”
“Good.”
“That wasn’t always a compliment.”
Riley smiled faintly.
Outside, sirens approached.
Adrian came to Matteo.
“Camera across the street caught a vehicle leaving.”
“Plate?”
“Covered.”
“Description?”
“Gray delivery van.”
Riley remembered something.
The first day.
The delivery van that had been unable to stop because Matteo’s car blocked the loading zone.
“Wait.”
Matteo saw her expression.
“What?”
“The Mercer Grand.”
“What about it?”
“When I towed your car, a delivery van tried to use the loading zone.”
“Yes.”
“It left.”
“So?”
“The logo.”
Riley closed her eyes, reconstructing the moment.
Blue lettering.
White van.
A circular emblem.
“Lake Shore Office Supply.”
Adrian looked at Matteo.
“That company services Duca properties.”
Matteo frowned.
“All of them?”
“Most.”
Riley asked, “Who contracts them?”
Adrian hesitated.
“Corporate procurement.”
Matteo became very still.
“Who runs procurement?”
Adrian answered.
“Victor Duca.”
Riley looked at Matteo.
“Family?”
“My uncle.”
Patrick whispered something.
Riley turned.
“What?”
Patrick looked at Matteo.
“Victor.”
“You know him?”
Patrick’s hands tightened around his cane.
“He was there.”
“When?”
“The first meeting with Salvatore.”
Matteo stared.
“You said Thomas arranged it.”
“He did.”
“But Victor attended?”
“Once.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I forgot.”
“No,” Riley said gently. “You didn’t.”
Patrick closed his eyes.
“He frightened Ellen.”
“How?”
“He told her families survived by knowing which battles belonged to them.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
Riley saw the implication.
Victor Duca had access to company contracts.
Company vehicles.
Historic property records.
And perhaps their parents’ secrets.
Matteo took out his phone.
“I need to find him.”
Adrian shook his head.
“He flew to New York this morning.”
“For what?”
“No meeting on the corporate calendar.”
Riley watched Matteo.
“Coincidence?”
“I stopped believing in those yesterday.”
A firefighter entered.
“Ms. Morgan?”
“Yes?”
“We found something you should see.”
He led Riley to the damaged records room.
One metal drawer had been forced open before the fire.
Not destroyed.
Opened.
Inside, files had been moved.
“What was stored here?” Matteo asked.
Riley looked at the label.
OLD CONTRACTS — 1998–2003.
Her stomach dropped.
“They weren’t trying to burn the building.”
Matteo nodded.
“They were looking for something.”
Riley inspected the folders.
One was missing.
Patrick saw the empty space.
His face collapsed.
“No.”
“What?”
He stepped forward.
“Ellen kept copies of every unusual tow request.”
“What was in the missing folder?”
Patrick whispered the answer.
“Midwest Continental.”
Matteo and Riley looked at each other.
Whoever started the fire had taken the bank records.
But something had gone wrong for them.
Because one piece remained.
Behind the drawer, trapped where it had slipped years earlier, Riley found an old carbon-copy invoice.
The customer name had faded.
The destination had not.
MIDWEST CONTINENTAL BANK — B2 ARCHIVE.
And beneath it was the name of the driver who had ordered the overnight transport.
Victor Duca.
Matteo stared at his uncle’s signature.
Then his phone vibrated.
A message.
From Victor.
He opened it.
ONLY ONE MORGAN HAD TO GET HURT LAST TIME.
DON’T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE YOUR FATHER DID.
Riley read it over his shoulder.
Matteo’s face became unreadable.
Riley touched his arm.
“Don’t do something stupid.”
He looked at her.
“That advice coming from you is extraordinary.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He put the phone away.
“My uncle just threatened you.”
“Yes.”
“He also admitted involvement.”
“Almost.”
“Enough for me.”
“Not enough for court.”
Matteo studied her.
Despite everything, he smiled faintly.
“You really are impossible.”
“So stop trying to protect me and help me prove it.”
He held her gaze.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
Riley picked up the surviving invoice.
“Where do we start?”
Matteo looked toward the tunnel.
“With the bank.”
And the next morning, Riley Morgan would walk into a building controlled by one of Chicago’s most powerful development companies carrying a twenty-five-year-old invoice.
What she did not yet know was that somebody inside was waiting for her.
May you like
And he knew exactly what Ellen Morgan had hidden.
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