Chapter 11 — The Vault
Crewe’s face was bruised from the staged attack in his car.
“You set the harbor explosion,” Celeste said.
“I arranged it.”
“And framed Reed.”
“Arthur needed the admiral neutralized.”
Moreno kept her weapon trained on him.
“You’re surrounded.”
“No,” Crewe said. “You are.”
One of the armed men emerged behind Moreno.
He wore a federal badge.
Moreno’s expression hardened.
Deputy Director Paul Haines had supervised the Vale investigation from Washington.
His name appeared in Arthur’s vault.
Haines removed Moreno’s weapon.
“You were always too curious,” he told her.
Crewe ordered Celeste to surrender the routing file and Reed’s folder.
Instead, she kicked the vault door release.
A steel barrier dropped between them.
Gunfire struck the other side.
Celeste and Moreno were trapped inside the vault.
“How long before the air runs out?” Moreno asked.
Celeste examined the walls.
“Long enough.”
She opened Reed’s folder.
Inside were letters between Reed and Evelyn, along with a DNA report.
The test had been completed when Celeste was seven.
Thomas Reed was not her biological father.
Celeste stared at the result.
“Then why did my mother tell him I might be his?”
Moreno opened another envelope.
It contained a photograph of Evelyn with a man Celeste recognized from military history books.
Admiral Samuel Cross, former Chief of Naval Operations.
Cross had died eighteen years earlier.
A handwritten confession explained everything.
Evelyn had uncovered illegal weapons sales involving Arthur and Cross. To protect Celeste, she convinced both men that either might be the father. As long as uncertainty remained, each feared harming the other’s child.
It had worked for years.
Then Cross died.
After that, Arthur no longer needed Celeste alive.
“She used paternity as protection,” Moreno said.
Celeste found a second DNA result.
Arthur Vale was her biological father.
He had known all along.
Reed had never been her father by blood.
He had simply chosen to protect her anyway.
An explosion shook the vault door.
Crewe was trying to breach it.
Moreno searched the shelves.
“There must be another exit.”
Celeste noticed grooves along the floor. The rear shelving unit sat on hidden tracks.
Together, they pushed it aside.
A tunnel opened behind the wall.
Before entering, Celeste took the original ledgers and Arthur’s recorded confession about the defective parts.
Then she saw one final folder.
It was labeled:
CELESTE — TERMINATION AUTHORIZATION
Inside was a signed order.
Arthur had placed a ten-million-dollar contract on his own daughter’s life.
The contractor’s name appeared beneath it.
May you like
Daniel Mercer.
Vivian’s husband.
