Chapter 10 - THE PACKAGE
Willow drove home faster than she should have.
Lucas had moved out weeks earlier after claiming he needed space.
She had thought it was temporary.
Now she wondered whether he had been preparing his escape.
Her building concierge stopped her.
“Mrs. Sterling.”
“A package arrived for you Monday.”
“I thought your husband collected it.”
Willow stopped.
“My husband?”
“Yes.”
Lucas had signed for it.
Security footage showed him carrying a brown archive box toward the parking garage.
Willow called Michael.
Then she called Amanda.
Amanda arrived first.
They entered Lucas’s private storage unit using a key Willow found in his desk.
The unit was almost empty.
One suitcase.
Two boxes.
A document shredder.
Ash in a metal trash bin.
Willow’s heart sank.
“He burned it.”
Amanda crouched beside the bin.
“Maybe not all of it.”
One corner of an envelope had survived.
On it were three handwritten letters.
WDS.
Willow Donovan Sterling.
Her name.
Michael arrived with Helena minutes later.
He examined the ashes without touching them.
Then Helena noticed something.
A small brass key beneath the shelf.
Attached was a tag.
UNION STATION 416.
Willow looked at Michael.
“A locker?”
They drove downtown.
Locker 416 stood at the end of a quiet row.
The brass key fit.
Inside was another box.
On top lay a handwritten letter.
Willow recognized none of the handwriting.
She opened it.
Dear Willow,
If you are reading this, Richard Sterling finally became desperate enough to search for what his family stole.
Your grandfather Patrick was not paranoid.
He was not reckless.
And he did not die because his brakes simply failed.
I have spent forty-seven years being afraid.
I am finished.
Evelyn North.
Michael sat down on the nearby bench.
His face had gone gray.
Inside the box were maintenance photographs of Patrick’s car.
A mechanic’s original report.
The brake line had been deliberately cut.
There were also copies of corporate transfer records.
Letters between Charles and Richard.
And a cassette recording dated four days after Patrick’s death.
Michael stared at it.
“I don’t have anything that can play this.”
Helena raised one eyebrow.
“My grandfather owns everything from the twentieth century.”
Two hours later, they sat in Helena’s apartment around an ancient cassette player.
Static filled the room.
Then Charles Sterling’s voice emerged.
Richard, the Donovan problem is finished.
A younger Richard answered.
Not completely.
Michael is still alive.
Willow looked at her father.
His hands began shaking.
Then Charles spoke again.
Leave the boy alone.
We have done enough.
Nobody in the room moved.
The recording continued.
May you like
And by the time it ended, Michael Donovan knew that his father’s death had been hidden beneath the Sterling empire for nearly half a century.
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