Chapter 5 - The Woman Inside the Family
Darkness swallowed the corridor.
Lena immediately turned on her phone flashlight.
Adrian did the same.
Richard tried the door.
Locked electronically.
“Victoria controls access?” Lena asked.
Richard’s face was grim.
“She sits on the board of Vale Security.”
“Of course she does.”
Despite everything, Adrian almost smiled at Lena’s dry delivery.
Evelyn took the hard drives from Locker 317.
“We need another exit.”
Lena looked toward the old maintenance shafts.
“My father worked elevators.”
Everyone turned.
“So?”
“He taught me how service corridors are designed. If this section connected to older freight elevators, there should be a mechanical access passage behind one of these walls.”
Adrian stared at her.
“You repair elevators too?”
“No.”
“What do you do besides deliveries?”
“Mechanical engineering degree.”
Richard blinked.
“You’re a courier with an engineering degree?”
“Student loans don’t care about irony.”
They searched the corridor.
Lena noticed one steel panel had newer screws than the others.
“Here.”
Adrian used Samuel’s screwdriver from the toolbox.
The panel opened.
Behind it was a narrow maintenance tunnel.
Evelyn looked impressed.
“Your father taught you well.”
Lena swallowed.
“I wish I’d appreciated it.”
They climbed through.
Twenty minutes later, they emerged in a service alley two blocks away.
Richard immediately called one person.
Martin Keene.
His attorney of thirty years.
Adrian stopped him.
“How do we know he’s trustworthy?”
Richard hesitated.
That was the new reality.
Nobody knew.
Evelyn answered.
“We don’t.”
They decided to avoid all family properties.
Lena suggested the safest place she knew.
Her mother’s bakery.
At three in the morning, they entered through the rear door of Brooks Bakery.
The smell of flour and vanilla lingered in the dark kitchen.
Lena’s mother, Caroline, lived upstairs.
Lena tried to move quietly.
She failed.
The lights came on.
Caroline Brooks stood at the top of the staircase holding a rolling pin.
“Lena?”
Then she saw Adrian.
Richard.
Evelyn.
Her face changed completely.
“Evelyn.”
Lena froze.
“You know her?”
Caroline slowly lowered the rolling pin.
Evelyn whispered, “Hello, Caroline.”
Lena stared at her mother.
“You know Evelyn Vale?”
Caroline’s eyes filled.
“I was hoping you’d never have to find out.”
Lena laughed in disbelief.
“Apparently everyone in Chicago has a secret except me.”
Caroline came downstairs.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Please don’t use that sentence tonight.”
Caroline looked at Evelyn.
“She found Samuel’s letter?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s over.”
Lena stepped forward.
“What is over?”
Caroline sat.
For fourteen years, she had told Lena that Samuel abandoned them.
It was a lie.
Samuel had come home briefly the night before his disappearance.
He told Caroline he had discovered evidence involving powerful people.
He asked her to take Lena away.
Caroline refused.
Then Samuel received a phone call.
“He told me he had to meet Evelyn one last time,” Caroline said.
“And then?”
“He never came home.”
“Why did you tell me he left us?”
“Because two men came to the house.”
Caroline’s voice shook.
“They told me if I ever mentioned Evelyn Vale, Samuel, or anything connected to Vale Tower, you would disappear too.”
Lena stared.
“So you made me hate my father.”
“I made you stop looking for him.”
The anger in Lena’s chest collided with understanding.
Neither won.
Caroline touched her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Lena pulled away.
“Do you know if Dad is alive?”
Caroline looked toward Evelyn.
“No.”
Evelyn opened the metal case.
“We may be able to find out.”
One hard drive was encrypted.
Lena connected it to the bakery office computer.
Her father had taught her something else.
Passwords should mean something to the person creating them but nothing to anyone else.
She tried birthdays.
Failed.
Wedding anniversary.
Failed.
Then she remembered the phrase Samuel always used when fixing something.
Everything tells you what’s wrong if you pay attention.
She entered:
PAYATTENTION
Access granted.
Folders appeared.
Financial records.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
A folder labeled SAMUEL.
Lena clicked.
Video.
Dated only six months earlier.
Her father appeared on-screen.
Older.
Gray beard.
Alive.
Lena collapsed into the chair.
“Oh my God.”
Caroline screamed softly.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
Samuel sat inside an unfamiliar room.
“If Lena ever sees this,” he said, “I need her to know I’m alive.”
Lena began crying.
Adrian stood behind her.
Not touching.
Just there.
“I stayed hidden because Robert found Caroline and Lena once. I couldn’t risk leading him back.”
Caroline whispered, “Samuel…”
The video continued.
“I have spent fourteen years tracking the money. Robert believes Account 317 was emptied long ago. It wasn’t.”
Richard frowned.
“What?”
“Evelyn redirected the final transfer before she disappeared.”
Evelyn stared.
“That was Samuel.”
Samuel smiled faintly on-screen.
“The thirty million became more than six hundred million through investments over two decades.”
Adrian looked at Evelyn.
“Where is it?”
Samuel answered from the recording.
“The money belongs to Adrian. But accessing it requires three people.”
He held up three fingers.
“Evelyn Vale.”
“Adrian Vale.”
“And my daughter, Lena Brooks.”
Lena stared.
“Me?”
“The account was placed under a legal trust. Lena is the independent beneficiary representative because Robert can imitate a Vale.”
Adrian understood.
“Someone outside the family.”
“Yes,” Evelyn said.
Samuel continued.
“Robert and Victoria need Lena.”
Everyone became silent.
“That is why she was chosen tonight,” Adrian said.
The delivery.
The package.
Everything.
Perhaps whoever sent it was trying to bring Lena to Adrian before Robert could reach her.
Samuel’s recording ended with coordinates.
A lake house in Wisconsin.
Lena stood.
“We’re going.”
Richard said, “We don’t know when that was recorded.”
“Six months ago.”
“He may not be there.”
“I don’t care.”
Adrian picked up the hard drive.
“We leave now.”
Caroline insisted on coming.
Lena refused.
“One Brooks woman walking into this disaster is enough.”
They hugged.
Awkwardly at first.
Then tightly.
Before sunrise, Adrian, Lena, Evelyn, and Richard drove north in Caroline’s old bakery van.
No GPS.
No smartphones turned on.
Two hours later, they reached a secluded lake.
A small cabin stood among pine trees.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
Lena stopped walking.
The front door opened.
Samuel Brooks stepped outside.
Fourteen years disappeared from her face.
“Dad?”
Samuel’s eyes filled.
“Lena.”
She ran.
He caught her.
They held each other beneath the cold morning sky.
Adrian looked away, giving them privacy.
Evelyn took his hand.
He tensed.
Then slowly allowed it.
Samuel eventually looked toward Adrian.
“You grew up.”
Adrian gave a small smile.
“So did Lena.”
For several minutes, the nightmare felt almost finished.
Then Samuel said something that destroyed the feeling.
“We don’t have much time.”
“Why?” Richard asked.
Samuel looked across the lake.
“Because Victoria isn’t working with Robert anymore.”
Adrian frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Samuel’s expression darkened.
“It means Victoria took control.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.”
Samuel opened the cabin door.
Inside, maps and photographs covered the walls.
Corporate holdings.
Bank records.
Vale properties.
At the center was a photograph of Victoria.
Samuel pointed to it.
“Robert thought he was using her.”
He looked at Richard.
“He was wrong.”
“What does she want?”
Samuel’s answer was simple.
“The Vale empire.”
“And me?” Adrian asked.
Samuel shook his head.
“No.”
Then he looked at Lena.
“She wants you.”
Lena’s stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Because without your signature, she can never touch the six hundred million.”
Adrian moved closer to Lena instinctively.
Samuel continued.
“And Victoria knows exactly where we are.”
A red dot began blinking on the bakery van parked outside.
A tracker.
May you like
Someone had planted it before they left Chicago.
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