Chapter 4 - The Archive RoomThe wedding could wait.
Evidence could not.
Lena and I took the service elevator downstairs.
I was still wearing my backup wedding dress.
It felt ridiculous.
It also felt perfect.
At the basement corridor, two venue guards stood beside an open archive door.
One pointed to a plastic tote on the floor.
Inside were shredded paper strips.
My stomach twisted.
“Did Vanessa do this?”
“We don’t know.”
Then a voice came from behind us.
“I do.”
Andrew Hale walked down the hallway with State Investigator Maya Brooks.
Andrew was sixty, silver-haired, and incapable of looking surprised by anything.
Today he looked angry.
Maya showed her credentials.
“Nobody touches that bin.”
She entered the archive room.
Rows of banker boxes filled metal shelves.
Several were open.
One shelf was empty.
Andrew looked at me.
“Those were the vendor ledgers.”
“Gone?”
“Maybe.”
Maya crouched near the shredder.
“It’s warm.”
My jaw tightened.
Vanessa had not only ruined my dress.
She had used the wedding as cover to destroy records.
Andrew asked, “Where is she?”
“Upstairs.”
“Keep her there.”
I looked at him.
“You really think she’ll stay after this?”
He nodded toward the ballroom ceiling.
“Her entire family is upstairs. So are three board members, two bank executives, and the man she thinks is going to save her.”
“Martin?”
Andrew shook his head.
“No.”
Before I could ask, Maya found a small black flash drive beneath a file cabinet.
She held it up.
“Anyone recognize this?”
I did.
My mother used black drives with red tape labels.
This one said:
FY-2 AUDIT.
My mother had died three years ago.
I stared at Andrew.
“You told me there was no final audit.”
“I told you we couldn’t find it.”
Maya bagged the drive.
Then footsteps echoed behind us.
Daniel appeared at the end of the corridor.
He was wearing his tuxedo.
His face was tight.
“Claire.”
I sighed.
“I told you to stay upstairs.”
“You told me to trust you.”
“I need another twenty minutes.”
He looked at the evidence bags.
“I trusted you for eight months while you refused to tell me why you kept meeting a lawyer.”
My heart hurt.
He continued.
“But now Martin is upstairs telling guests you’ve had some kind of breakdown.”
Andrew swore under his breath.
Daniel looked at me.
“And Vanessa is crying in front of your father’s portrait.”
I stared.
“My father’s portrait?”
“The one she had brought into the reception hall.”
Andrew’s face changed.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Your father’s portrait has a safe compartment in the frame.”
I blinked.
He said, “Your mother used it for emergency documents.”
May you like
Vanessa had not brought the portrait for sentimental reasons.
She had brought it because something was hidden inside.
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