Chapter 9 - A VOICE FROM TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO
Smoke poured from the records room two floors below us.
Victor's people had set a fire to destroy the pension files stored in Harrington Tower.
Employees crowded the stairwells.
Daniel ordered a full evacuation while Reyes sent officers toward the airfield.
I should have left with the others.
Instead, I followed Michael into the secure archive.
The original trust agreement was stored there, along with the only copy of Claire's sworn affidavit.
Sprinklers hammered the hallway.
The archive door had jammed during the alarm.
Daniel found us struggling with the lock.
He grabbed a fire bar and forced the door open.
Inside, smoke curled across the ceiling, but the fire had not reached the central vault.
We recovered the documents and a box Michael had never seen before.
Claire's name was written across the top in Charles's handwriting.
Firefighters pushed us toward the stairs.
Outside, employees gathered across the street while flames flickered behind the upper windows.
Daniel opened the box on the hood of a police car.
Inside was an old microcassette labeled CONFESSION.
Reyes found a recorder in her evidence kit.
Charles's voice came through the speaker.
He sounded tired and angry.
“Claire will not sign.”
“Victor says the drugs are making her confused, but she still remembers the accounts.”
“If Margaret discovers the child survived, she will destroy us.”
Victor answered, “Then keep Claire hidden and let the family believe she ran.”
Charles said, “What about Emily?”
Victor replied, “Ruth Carter took her.”
“I'll find the girl when the time is right.”
The tape clicked off.
My stomach turned.
Vanessa had not chosen me by chance.
Her father had been searching for me since I was a baby.
She had recognized the locket when she saw it beneath my uniform weeks earlier.
The planted necklace was meant to put me in police custody, discredit my claim, and give Victor time to move Claire.
Reyes received an update from the airfield.
The company jet had never taken off.
Victor had used it as a distraction.
A fuel receipt showed his vehicle turning west toward the coast.
Daniel studied the shell-company map.
The abandoned winery was not the only property Victor controlled.
There was an old Harrington shipping warehouse near the cliffs, purchased under another name after Claire vanished.
Margaret suddenly remembered something.
Claire had loved that place as a child because an underground tunnel led from the warehouse to a private dock.
Reyes called the harbor patrol.
A storm was moving in.
If Victor reached the dock, he could put Claire on a boat and disappear.
Then my phone rang from an unknown number.
I answered.
May you like
A weak woman's voice said one word.
“Emily?”
