Chapter 4 - Someone Knew
Adrian shoved the door closed.
Grace locked it.
A second later someone struck the other side.
Hard.
Eleanor gripped the wheelchair arms.
“They know.”
Adrian turned on his flashlight.
“Who knows?”
Another impact shook the door.
Grace looked around the room.
“No second exit?”
Eleanor pointed toward the shelves.
“Behind them.”
Adrian pushed one shelf aside.
A narrow maintenance passage appeared.
Grace gathered the envelope and several documents.
“What about everything else?”
“We come back.”
Another crash.
The lock began bending.
Adrian pushed Eleanor through the passage.
Grace followed.
They emerged behind the old laundry basement.
Adrian immediately called security.
When guards reached room 217 minutes later, whoever had attacked the door was gone.
So was the wooden box.
Every document remaining inside had disappeared.
Grace stared at the empty room.
“They knew exactly what to take.”
Adrian looked at her envelope.
“But they didn’t know what you already removed.”
One document listed payments from Blackwood Holdings to an entity called Meridian Consulting.
The transfers began nineteen years earlier.
Two weeks before Thomas Miller died.
Grace scanned the names.
Most were coded.
One was not.
Sinclair Family Trust.
Vanessa’s family.
Grace looked at Adrian.
“You said her family donated tonight.”
“They have worked with mine for decades.”
Eleanor’s face hardened.
“Which is why Vanessa being here tonight may not be coincidence.”
Grace suddenly understood.
“You think she recognized you.”
Eleanor nodded.
“Perhaps.”
“But she acted like she didn’t.”
“Vanessa lies professionally.”
Adrian looked between them.
“My mother attended dozens of public events.”
“Not for three years.”
Eleanor replied.
“After my stroke, I disappeared from public life.”
Grace remembered Vanessa’s rage.
Her insistence Eleanor be removed.
Her fear when Adrian arrived.
Maybe it had not been simple arrogance.
Maybe Vanessa had wanted Eleanor gone before someone important saw her.
Adrian’s phone rang.
His head of security was calling.
He listened.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
Grace watched him.
Adrian ended the call.
“The ballroom camera covering the corridor was disabled eight minutes before Vanessa confronted you.”
Eleanor whispered.
“Someone planned it.”
Grace felt a chill.
The gala continued upstairs as if nothing had happened.
Music.
Champagne.
Speeches about charity.
Below them, the truth was beginning to rot through the foundation.
Adrian looked at Grace.
“Come upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever took that box may still be in the building.”
Grace thought of Vanessa.
“Then shouldn’t we call the police?”
“We will.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“Not yet.”
Adrian turned sharply.
“Mother.”
“If Thomas was right, people inside the police department may have been paid.”
Grace stared at her.
“How deep does this go?”
Eleanor answered with a question.
“How much did your father ever tell you about your mother’s first husband?”
Grace froze.
“My mother was only married once.”
Eleanor looked devastated.
“No, Grace.”
May you like
She reached for her hand.
“She wasn’t.”
