Chapter 9 - THE FIRE AT FULTON STREET.
By sunrise, firefighters had controlled the hospital records-room fire.
Nobody was injured.
Most of the documents had electronic backups.
The fire had been another distraction.
Security cameras showed Natalie leaving through a service tunnel seconds before the alarm.
Police began searching for her.
I drove directly to the abandoned Fulton Street warehouse.
It was the place where Apex had begun.
The faded company name remained visible above the loading dock.
I remembered sleeping on the office floor between overnight cleaning jobs.
I remembered eating crackers for dinner because every dollar had gone toward payroll.
My father’s key opened the side entrance.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and old chemicals.
Claire, David, Marcus, and Grandma Eleanor waited outside with the police.
I entered with two officers.
Boxes had been opened across the warehouse floor.
Old contracts were scattered everywhere.
In the former supply room, we found a desk covered with forged documents.
Natalie had recreated years of Apex records.
She had carefully constructed a false history of fraud.
On the wall hung photographs of my family.
My mother at charity events.
My father leaving the bank.
Claire and David outside their house.
Me entering Apex headquarters.
Natalie had not only studied the company.
She had studied all of us.
One officer opened a locked cabinet.
Inside were ledgers from my father’s failed maintenance business.
The original accounting records proved he had stolen the money.
They also showed that Natalie’s father had discovered the theft shortly before the company collapsed.
At the bottom of the cabinet, I found a digital recorder.
I pressed play.
Natalie’s voice filled the room.
“If you are hearing this, Emily, then your father has finally told you the truth.”
“He destroyed my family.”
“You built Apex using the same customer list he stole from us.”
My stomach tightened.
I had found my first clients through old business contacts my father gave me.
I had never asked where the list came from.
Natalie continued.
“You believe you built everything alone.”
“But your foundation was stolen.”
A floorboard creaked behind me.
I turned.
May you like
Natalie stood in the doorway holding a container of gasoline.
“If I cannot have what my father was owed,” she said, “nobody will have it.”
