Chapter 14 - Commerce Street
We did not go to the warehouse alone.
Howard insisted on hiring an independent security team. Maya arranged for a records specialist to join us. Mark drove his father.
Commerce Street sat in an older industrial section south of downtown. The Mercer name was still painted faintly above a rusted loading door.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Howard led us to a back office with wood paneling and a steel filing cabinet bolted to the floor.
The key still worked.
The first drawer contained insurance policies.
The second held old injury reports.
The third was empty.
Howard stared at it.
“No.”
“What should be there?” I asked.
“The reserve ledger.”
Mark searched the cabinet.
Nothing.
Then the records specialist noticed fresh scratches around one bolt.
“This cabinet was moved recently.”
We checked the security camera mounted over the loading entrance.
The warehouse did not have active service, but the camera stored footage locally.
Three nights earlier, someone had entered at 2:18 a.m.
Daniel.
He spent twenty-seven minutes inside.
When he left, he carried a gray archive box.
Howard gripped his cane so hard his knuckles turned white.
“My son knew.”
I wanted to feel satisfaction.
I felt grief instead.
Daniel had spent months telling me his mother was difficult but harmless. He had defended every insult, every demand, every “family tradition.”
Now I knew why.
He was not trapped beneath Patricia.
He was working beside her.
A floorboard creaked behind us.
The security guard turned.
A man stood in the office doorway.
It was the accountant from my wedding hallway—the man who had looked at the floor when I asked who opened the bridal suite safe.
His name was Evan Price.
He raised both hands.
“I did not come to hurt anyone.”
“Why are you here?” Maya asked.
May you like
He looked at me.
“Because I opened the safe.”
