Chapter 10 - The Letter
Police reached Rachel’s house before I did.
The back door had been forced.
Drawers emptied.
Closets opened.
Her home office destroyed.
Rachel and Emma’s hospital nurse were safe.
The letter was not at the house.
Rachel had moved it two years earlier to a safe-deposit box.
The next morning, under federal supervision, we opened the box.
Michael,
If the reserve problem ever reaches you, do not protect my name. Protect the people whose money I used.
The notebook contains every transfer, every person who knew, and the one man who turned my mistake into a business.
Do not trust Victor Lang.
I read the last line twice.
The letter continued.
Victor promised to help me replace the reserve. Instead, he created vehicles that made repayment impossible without exposing both of us. If he ever approaches Sterling again, understand this: he is not coming to buy the company. He is coming to bury evidence.
Rachel cried quietly beside me.
I didn’t.
Not yet.
There was one final instruction.
The notebook had two keys.
The red key opened the visible lock.
A second key opened a hidden compartment inside the back cover.
“What second key?” Lena asked.
Rachel reached into the safe-deposit box.
A small silver key lay beneath the letter.
For three days people had threatened my daughter, broken into homes, forged court papers, and tried to steal a notebook.
They still didn’t know there were two keys.
The problem was simple.
We no longer had the notebook.
Then Detective Mercer called.
Owen Price had been arrested at the airport.
He was carrying seventy thousand dollars in cash.
And my father’s red notebook.
I drove to the federal building.
Owen sat behind glass.
His face had the dead look of a man who finally understood he had chosen the losing side.
“Why?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“Money.”
“At least you’re honest now.”
He flinched.
“I never agreed to hurt Emma.”
“You shut off the cameras.”
“I thought they were provoking you.”
“You helped them build the trap.”
Owen looked down.
Then he whispered, “Claire still has one more plan.”
“What plan?”
May you like
His eyes lifted.
“She never expected the staircase to fail.”
