Chapter 8 - Harper Finds the Locked Door
Harper waited until Victor went downstairs.
Then she broke into his office.
Technically, she used the access code she'd watched him enter two nights earlier.
Victor would call that breaking in.
Harper preferred unauthorized problem solving.
She wasn't looking for company secrets.
She was looking for the thing everyone else seemed to understand except her.
Victor's past.
She searched no drawers.
She touched nothing private.
Instead, she opened the old property maps Arthur had left on the desk.
Route Seventeen.
Four sites.
Warehouse 214.
Goose Island.
South Yard.
And one unnamed location represented only by a black circle.
Harper leaned closer.
No address.
No parcel number.
Nothing.
She heard the elevator.
Victor.
Harper hurriedly photographed the map with her phone.
She left the office just before Victor entered the penthouse.
He looked at her.
“You look guilty.”
“I always look guilty.”
“No.”
Victor removed his coat.
“This is specific guilt.”
Harper smiled.
“You're becoming disturbingly good at reading me.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“Neither is most of what you tell me.”
Victor stared at her.
She escaped toward the kitchen.
Later that night, while Victor slept for his usual inadequate four hours, Harper studied the photograph.
The black circle bothered her.
She opened public city maps.
Nothing matched.
Then she looked at train routes.
Still nothing.
At 2:17 a.m., she realized the circle wasn't marking a property.
It marked a tunnel.
An abandoned freight tunnel beneath downtown Chicago.
Harper searched historical archives.
The tunnel had once connected several warehouses near the river.
Most entrances were sealed decades earlier.
One entrance sat directly beneath Gallow Tower.
Harper froze.
Route Seventeen wasn't merely connected to Victor's company.
Part of it was under the building.
At 6:10 a.m., she confronted him.
Victor listened.
Then looked at Arthur.
Arthur swore.
“How did we miss it?”
“Because everyone searched above ground,” Harper said.
Victor's eyes narrowed.
“How did you find the map?”
Harper suddenly found the coffee machine fascinating.
“Harper.”
She sighed.
“Your office.”
“You entered my office?”
“It wasn't locked.”
“It has a code.”
“Yes.”
“That means locked.”
“Philosophically debatable.”
Victor stared at her.
Arthur walked away before laughing.
Victor lowered his voice.
“You cannot keep putting yourself into dangerous situations.”
“I sat at a desk.”
“You accessed information Vane is killing people to find.”
“Which is why maybe you should tell me things before I have to discover them myself.”
Victor's anger softened.
Harper stepped closer.
“You're trying to protect me by keeping me blind.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn't make me safer.”
Victor knew she was right.
He hated how frequently that happened.
Two hours later, they entered a restricted basement beneath Gallow Tower.
Behind a concrete maintenance wall, workers found an old steel door.
No modern plans showed it.
Victor touched the rusted surface.
His father had constructed an empire around secrets.
Apparently some had been beneath Victor's feet every day.
They opened the door.
A narrow staircase descended.
Harper switched on a flashlight.
Arthur blocked her.
“No.”
She frowned.
Victor agreed.
“You stay upstairs.”
Harper looked from one man to the other.
“Fine.”
Both men blinked.
“That was easy,” Arthur said.
“It shouldn't have been,” Victor replied.
Ten minutes into the tunnel, Victor received a message from Harper.
Found another entrance.
Victor stopped walking.
He called immediately.
“What did you do?”
“I stayed upstairs.”
“Harper.”
“I just didn't stay in the same upstairs.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Where are you?”
“Parking level B4.”
Arthur muttered something.
Harper continued.
“There is another door behind the old electrical room.”
“Do not open it.”
Silence.
“Harper.”
A metal creak came through the phone.
Victor started running.
“Harper!”
“I may already have opened it.”
When Victor reached B4, Harper stood beside a narrow chamber.
Inside was a safe.
No keypad.
No lock.
Only a biometric scanner.
Victor stared.
Harper pointed.
“Apparently this part really is about you.”
Victor placed his hand against the scanner.
Nothing.
Then a voice played from a hidden speaker.
His father's voice.
Victor froze.
If you're hearing this, Victor, then I failed.
Harper's expression softened.
Victor didn't move.
And if Malcolm Vane is alive, trust no one who tells you they know the entire truth. Not Mercer. Not Vane. Not Arthur. Not even me.
Arthur went still.
The recording continued.
The ledger was divided. No single person could access it. I gave one piece to the person Vane would never suspect.
Victor frowned.
You.
A panel opened.
Inside sat a small flash drive.
Harper whispered, “That's it?”
Victor removed it.
His father's voice continued.
This is not the ledger. It is the key.
Arthur looked toward Victor.
The ledger itself is stored somewhere you already know. Somewhere you have looked at every day and never seen.
The recording ended.
Harper stared at the flash drive.
“That's annoyingly cryptic.”
Victor almost agreed.
Then every light in the basement switched off.
Emergency alarms sounded.
Arthur grabbed his radio.
“No signal.”
Victor took Harper's hand.
“Stay with me.”
A voice came from the dark.
Not Vane.
Richard Hale.
The missing executive.
“I'm afraid she can't do that.”
A flashlight beam appeared.
Hale stood twenty feet away.
Two armed men beside him.
Harper's hand tightened around Victor's.
Hale smiled.
“You found the key for us.”
Victor moved slightly in front of Harper.
“Where's Vane?”
“Close.”
Arthur raised his weapon.
Hale shook his head.
“Don't.”
A red laser appeared on Harper's chest.
Victor saw it.
And instantly understood.
Another shooter.
Hidden.
Watching.
Hale held out his hand.
“The drive.”
Victor looked at Harper.
Then at the laser.
His father's entire secret sat between two fingers.
Victor dropped the flash drive onto the floor.
Hale smiled.
“Kick it over.”
Victor did.
Hale picked it up.
Harper whispered, “Victor…”
He looked at her.
“It's okay.”
Hale laughed.
“No, Mr. Gallow.”
He placed the flash drive in his pocket.
“It really isn't.”
Then he looked toward Harper.
May you like
“Because now that we have the key, Mr. Vane no longer needs her alive.”
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