Chapter 9 - The Key
The brass key opened a safe-deposit box at a private bank in Beacon Hill.
Nora, Adrian, Dominic, and two federal agents entered the vault the next morning.
The box held no money.
Only a black metal cylinder and a handwritten ledger.
The ledger belonged to Claire Bennett.
Nora turned the pages.
Dates.
License plates.
Payments.
Names.
Her mother had been tracking the conspiracy after Daniel vanished.
She had not been waiting helplessly.
She had been building a second case.
The metal cylinder contained a cryptographic key.
Combined with Adrian's hidden drive, it could unlock Daniel's files.
There was one problem.
The drive from the library wall had disappeared during the fire.
Adrian swore it had been there the week before.
Dominic checked every person who entered the damaged manor after the explosion.
Firefighters.
Police.
Paramedics.
Staff.
One name did not belong.
Elias Ward.
Adrian went still.
"Who is he?" Nora asked.
"My uncle."
Vincent Vale's younger brother.
Elias had left Boston twenty years ago after a fight over the family business.
Adrian believed he lived in Europe.
He did not.
Elias owned a warehouse company in Rhode Island under another name.
Federal agents raided it.
They found weapons, cash, forged passports, and photographs of Nora taken over nine months.
One photo showed her entering Vale Manor on her first day as a maid.
Someone had known exactly who she was from the beginning.
Another photo showed Daniel Bennett alive six months earlier.
Standing beside Elias Ward.
Nora's heart dropped.
"My father works with him?"
Adrian shook his head.
"We don't know that."
A laptop recovered from the warehouse contained one recent email.
FROM: DANIEL BENNETT
TO: ELIAS WARD
YOU PROMISED NORA WOULD NEVER BE USED.
Elias replied:
SHE STOPPED BEING INNOCENT THE DAY SHE ENTERED ADRIAN'S HOUSE.
Nora looked at Adrian.
"They knew."
May you like
He nodded.
"From the day you arrived."
