Chapter 3 - THE LOCKER UNDER ANOTHER NAME
Dr. Lowell did not leave St. Vincent’s voluntarily.
Two of Damian’s men escorted him out while a third confiscated every medication vial in Arthur’s suite.
Elena watched from the doorway.
“This is technically kidnapping.”
Damian glanced at her.
“He’s going to a conference room downstairs.”
“With armed escorts.”
“He’s a nervous traveler.”
Against all reason, Elena almost laughed.
Then Arthur made a sound.
“El…”
They both turned.
His lips moved.
“El…”
Elena approached.
“Don’t force it.”
Arthur’s eyes moved to Damian.
Then back to her pocket.
The key.
Elena’s pulse jumped.
Damian saw the movement.
“What’s in your pocket?”
“Lip balm.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“So are you.”
“About what?”
“I haven’t figured that out.”
They stared at one another.
Arthur’s monitor beeped steadily between them.
Finally Damian said, “Whatever my father gave you belongs to him.”
Elena’s hand closed over the key.
“He hid it before you arrived.”
Damian’s expression changed.
“You have something.”
Arthur made another sound.
“Nn…”
His eyes fixed on Elena.
No.
She understood.
Elena stepped back.
“I’m going home.”
Damian blocked the doorway.
“No.”
“Move.”
“I can have someone take you.”
“I said move.”
His gaze dropped briefly to her belly.
Then he stepped aside.
“Don’t disappear.”
Elena looked at him.
“Mr. Vale, I’m a pregnant nurse with a twelve-year-old Honda. I’m not exactly Jason Bourne.”
For the first time, Damian smiled.
It made him look more dangerous.
“That’s exactly what Jason Bourne would say.”
Elena rolled her eyes and left.
Forty minutes later she was not driving home.
The key had a number stamped onto it.
Elena recognized the logo beneath the number.
North Harbor Savings.
A bank where her father had once kept an account.
The branch opened at eight.
Elena waited in the parking lot drinking terrible vending-machine coffee until the doors unlocked.
Locker 417 was registered under the name Daniel Ward.
Her father.
Elena stopped breathing.
Daniel Ward had died eighteen years ago.
The bank manager checked the records twice.
“Ms. Ward?”
“That was my father.”
The manager’s expression shifted.
“There is an access instruction.”
“What instruction?”
“If Elena Ward presents identification, access is permitted.”
Elena felt the floor tilt.
Ten minutes later, she stood inside a private vault room staring at a steel box.
The tiny key fit perfectly.
Inside were no diamonds.
No cash.
Only documents.
Photographs.
A cassette tape.
And a sealed envelope.
For Elena.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Ellie,
If you are reading this, then Arthur finally decided the truth was safer than silence.
Elena covered her mouth.
Her father’s handwriting.
She kept reading.
I did something dangerous because I thought telling the truth would protect people. I discovered money moving through companies that did not exist. Arthur believed someone inside the Vale organization was stealing. I helped him trace it.
Then somebody found out.
Elena sat down.
Her father’s car had gone through a guardrail when she was nine.
Police called it an accident.
The letter continued.
If anything happens to me, do not blame Arthur.
And do not blame his son.
Damian was only seventeen.
The betrayal came from someone Arthur called a brother.
A sound came behind her.
Elena spun.
Damian Vale stood in the doorway.
Two men behind him.
His expression was unreadable.
“You followed me.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“Probably not.”
She clutched the letter.
“How did my father know yours?”
Damian looked at the box.
Then at the handwriting.
For the first time since she had met him, genuine shock crossed his face.
“Daniel Ward?”
“You knew him?”
Damian walked slowly closer.
“My father’s accountant.”
Elena stood.
“You said that like he was more than an accountant.”
“He was.”
“What happened to him?”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“He died.”
“I know that.”
“No.”
Damian looked directly into her eyes.
“He was murdered.”
Elena stopped breathing.
The room seemed to lose all sound.
“You knew?”
“I heard the truth years later.”
“And you never came to us?”
“I was seventeen when it happened.”
“You’re not seventeen now.”
Damian flinched.
Good.
She wanted him to.
“Who killed him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
“I don’t know.”
“Arthur does.”
Damian looked at the letter again.
“Yes.”
Elena’s hand instinctively covered her belly.
Everything she knew about her childhood suddenly felt rearranged.
Damian lowered his voice.
“Whatever is in that box, we need to take it somewhere safe.”
“We?”
“You opened a locker connected to a murder somebody buried for eighteen years.”
“I’m not giving you these documents.”
“You think I want them from you?”
“I think your last name is Vale.”
Something wounded passed across his face.
Then vanished.
Before he could answer, the vault lights went out.
Darkness.
A second later—
glass shattered in the bank lobby.
Damian grabbed Elena and pulled her behind the steel wall.
A gunshot cracked through the building.
Then another.
Elena’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Damian covered her body with his.
May you like
His mouth was beside her ear.
“Now,” he whispered, “you can put me back in your top five problems.”
