Chapter 14 - Locker 317
At six the next morning, Evelyn, Clara, Thomas, Arthur, and Rebecca entered Grand Central Terminal.
Daniel and Vanessa were legally prohibited from approaching Clara until an emergency custody hearing.
But Evelyn knew court orders would not stop them from searching for evidence.
Locker 317 stood in a private storage corridor beneath the station.
Evelyn inserted a key.
The door opened.
Empty.
Thomas swore.
Arthur stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Evelyn reached inside.
Nothing.
Clara remembered Vanessa’s words.
She knew exactly what was in Locker 317.
“She took it.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“She couldn’t have known the locker number.”
“I said it in the greenhouse.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“Security may have recorded us.”
Thomas checked the lock.
“No forced entry.”
Rebecca asked, “What was stored here?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Then answered.
“The original Whitmore Trust ledger.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Original?”
“The ledger shows that Daniel altered beneficiary distributions before filing electronic copies.”
“What else?”
“A signed statement from the accountant who helped him.”
“Who?”
“Martin Hale.”
Clara recognized the last name.
“Vanessa’s father?”
Evelyn nodded.
Martin Hale had died three months after Evelyn disappeared.
Official cause was a heart attack.
But before his death, Martin secretly contacted Evelyn.
He confessed that Vanessa pressured him to alter documents.
“If Vanessa has the ledger and confession,” Thomas said, “she can destroy them.”
Clara looked inside the locker again.
Then she noticed scratches near the back panel.
“Mom.”
Evelyn leaned closer.
Clara pressed the metal.
A false panel popped open.
Inside was a tiny paper envelope.
Arthur smiled.
“Your grandfather designed these lockers.”
The envelope contained no ledger.
Only a USB drive.
And a note.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, SOMEONE GOT HERE FIRST.
Evelyn recognized the handwriting.
Martin Hale.
They connected the drive to Rebecca’s laptop.
A video appeared.
Martin sat inside an office.
He looked terrified.
“If the original documents disappear, I made another copy.”
He swallowed.
“Vanessa doesn’t know.”
Martin looked directly at the camera.
“The copy is hidden where she would never willingly return.”
The video ended.
Clara frowned.
“Where?”
Evelyn replayed the final frame.
Behind Martin was a painting.
A white farmhouse.
Vanessa’s childhood home.
Arthur whispered, “Virginia.”
Evelyn closed the laptop.
“We leave today.”
Clara looked behind them.
Across the terminal, a man lowered his newspaper.
May you like
Then touched an earpiece.
Someone was following them.
