Chapter 6 - THE SHIPYARD VAULT
We reached Baltimore before dawn.
The old shipyard looked abandoned.
It wasn't.
Behind a rusted warehouse door was a reinforced vault.
The key Garrett gave us opened the first lock.
Tobias opened the second.
Inside were boxes.
Photographs.
Contracts.
Bank records.
And one handwritten journal belonging to my father.
I read it page by page.
He had discovered that Gideon was using the shipyard to move stolen assets through legitimate shipping contracts.
My mother had confronted him.
Then she disappeared.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
She had begun cooperating with Gideon because he threatened Tobias.
The “accident” was staged when my parents tried to expose him.
Tobias had survived.
I had been kept ignorant.
Then came the final page.
My father had written:
Rosalind must never know until she is strong enough to survive the truth.
I cried.
All my life, I had thought my parents died protecting the company.
They had died protecting me.
Then the vault alarm activated.
Someone had entered the building.
Tobias looked at Garrett.
“Who followed us?”
Garrett's face changed.
“Penelope.”
The door exploded inward.
Men rushed in.
We ran through the warehouse.
Garrett grabbed my arm.
Tobias found an emergency exit.
We escaped onto the shipyard docks.
Behind us, flames rose from the warehouse.
The evidence was burning.
Except Tobias had anticipated it.
He held up a small drive.
“I copied everything.”
Garrett stared.
“You planned this?”
“For fifteen years.”
Sirens approached.
Not police.
Federal agents.
Tobias had contacted them before we entered.
The men were arrested.
May you like
But Gideon was gone.
And so was Penelope.
