Chapter 5 - The Blue Room
Margot hadn't stood in front of her childhood home since the day she handed the keys to a realtor.
Eleven years.
The white siding had been repainted gray.
The porch swing was gone.
Her mother's roses had been replaced by trimmed hedges.
But the second-floor corner window was the same.
Except now it glowed blue.
Damian parked across the street.
Nobody spoke.
Margot stared at the house.
"I used to sleep in that room."
Victor turned.
"What?"
"The blue room. My mother painted it blue when I was fourteen."
Victor's expression changed.
"Then Gabriel named the archive after your bedroom."
"Why?"
"He believed the safest hiding place was somewhere people misunderstood."
Damian checked the street.
"No visible security."
Caleb shook his head.
"That means there is security."
They entered through the rear.
Margot remembered the kitchen.
Not the furniture.
The dimensions.
A scratch beside the pantry door where Noah had crashed a toy truck.
It was still there.
Her throat tightened.
Someone had preserved the house.
Not as a home.
As a vault.
The staircase creaked at the same third step.
Margot stopped outside her old bedroom.
Blue light spilled beneath the door.
Damian stood beside her.
"Ready?"
"No."
He waited.
Margot looked at him.
"Open it anyway."
Damian pushed the door.
The room was empty.
No Gabriel.
No person at all.
The blue light came from an old desk lamp.
A projector displayed a life-size image against the window.
Gabriel's image.
A trick.
Victor cursed.
Margot entered.
Her old bedroom walls had been stripped and rebuilt.
Shelves covered every side.
Boxes.
Hard drives.
Paper ledgers.
Photographs.
A complete archive.
Elaine and Gabriel's work.
Damian walked slowly through it.
Evidence spanning decades.
Names of officials.
Business owners.
Smuggling routes.
Accounts.
Victims.
Margot felt physically ill.
Her mother had died carrying this secret.
Caleb opened a metal drawer.
Inside were recordings.
Each labeled by date.
Margot found one with Elaine's handwriting.
FOR MARGOT AND NOAH.
Her hands shook.
Damian saw.
"You don't have to watch now."
"Yes, I do."
They inserted the drive.
Elaine appeared on screen.
Margot stopped breathing.
Her mother sat in the very room where Margot now stood.
Alive.
Tired.
Beautiful.
"Margot. Noah."
Elaine smiled sadly.
"If you're watching this, then I failed to keep this from reaching you."
Margot covered her mouth.
Elaine continued.
"I wanted you to have ordinary lives. That was the entire point."
She explained that she had discovered altered shipping invoices while working at Ellery Freight.
At first, she believed it was financial fraud.
Then she found passenger records hidden as cargo codes.
She contacted authorities.
One detective quietly warned Gabriel Voss.
Gabriel approached Elaine.
Together they collected evidence.
Then Elaine discovered the person managing the network after Sebastian Voss withdrew.
Not Victor.
Not Gabriel.
A man named Malcolm Saye.
Damian knew the name.
His chief financial officer.
One of the seven people with manifest access.
Margot felt cold.
She had seen Malcolm yesterday.
He had stood at her desk asking when Damian would return from lunch.
Elaine looked into the camera.
"Malcolm is patient. He survives by allowing more frightening men to stand in front of him."
Damian's jaw tightened.
The recording continued.
"If Sebastian learns what Gabriel is doing, he may choose blood over conscience. If Victor is forced to choose between us and his daughter, I don't know what he'll do."
Victor looked away.
Elaine seemed to look directly through time.
"But Damian is different."
Damian froze.
Margot turned toward him.
Elaine continued.
"I met him once."
Damian whispered, "No."
Margot stared.
"You said you never met her."
"I don't remember."
Elaine smiled faintly.
"He was twenty-one. He came to the freight office looking for his uncle. He helped Noah pick up a box he'd dropped."
Margot looked at Damian.
A memory returned slowly.
A little boy outside a freight office.
Scattered pencils.
A young woman at a desk.
He had forgotten her face.
Elaine continued.
"Damian doesn't know what his father is involved in. If he grows into the man Gabriel believes he can become, maybe someday he'll be able to end this."
Damian turned away.
For once, Margot saw the weight of his name land on him differently.
Not as power.
As responsibility.
The video shifted.
Elaine held up a small ledger.
"The second file contains the names the digital archive does not."
She looked frightened.
"Because one of them is inside law enforcement at the highest level."
Caleb stepped closer.
"Who?"
Elaine didn't say.
Instead she gave instructions.
The ledger was hidden beneath the floorboards in Margot's room.
Margot knelt.
She remembered a loose board near the radiator.
As a child, she'd hidden letters and candy there.
She pried it up.
Nothing.
"Someone got here first."
Damian checked the dust.
Fresh scrape marks.
"Recently."
Victor found a footprint.
Caleb examined it.
"Maybe hours."
Margot's phone rang.
Malcolm Saye.
Everyone looked at the screen.
Damian answered.
"Malcolm."
"Damian. I heard there's been an incident involving Ms. Ellery."
Damian's face became blank.
"From who?"
"Security."
Caleb shook his head.
He had told nobody.
Malcolm continued.
"You should bring her to headquarters. We'll keep her safe."
Damian looked at Margot.
"That's considerate."
"I've always liked Margot."
Margot's skin crawled.
Damian's voice remained calm.
"Where are you?"
"Home."
Damian nodded at Caleb.
Caleb silently checked Malcolm's company phone location.
He turned the screen.
Malcolm was not home.
His phone pinged less than half a mile away.
Damian said, "Get some sleep, Malcolm."
"You too."
The call ended.
Damian looked toward the window.
"He's here."
Lights suddenly flooded the backyard.
Vehicles.
Multiple.
Caleb moved to the window.
"Six men."
Victor opened a hidden wall compartment.
Inside were two handguns and a shotgun.
Margot stared.
"Apparently my mother had an interesting decorating philosophy."
Victor handed Damian a weapon.
"You can complain later."
A loudspeaker activated outside.
Malcolm's voice.
"Damian."
Damian moved Margot away from the window.
"Come outside."
Damian said nothing.
Malcolm continued.
"I don't want you dead."
Victor laughed bitterly.
"That's new."
"I want Elaine's ledger."
Margot looked at the empty floor compartment.
They didn't have it.
Damian understood something.
"If Malcolm thinks it's here, he didn't take it."
Caleb nodded.
"Someone else did."
"Gabriel," Victor whispered.
Malcolm spoke again.
"And Margot?"
Her body stiffened.
"Your brother is alive."
A vehicle door opened outside.
Margot moved toward the window.
Damian caught her.
Noah stood beneath a security light.
Hands tied.
Two men beside him.
"Margot!" Noah shouted.
She covered her mouth.
Malcolm stepped into view.
Fifty-two.
Expensive overcoat.
Ordinary face.
A man who had spent years being forgettable.
He held a gun against Noah's side.
"Bring me the ledger."
Margot shouted through the glass.
"We don't have it!"
Malcolm smiled.
"Then Gabriel does."
Damian opened the upstairs window slightly.
"Where is he?"
Malcolm looked up.
"Closer than you think."
Damian's eyes narrowed.
"What do you want?"
"The ledger."
"You've said that."
"And your silence."
Damian almost smiled.
"You should know me better."
"I do."
Malcolm's smile disappeared.
"That's why I brought someone who knows you better than I ever could."
A second vehicle door opened.
An older man stepped out.
Damian froze.
Victor whispered, "Impossible."
Caleb raised his weapon.
Margot looked from one face to another.
"Who is that?"
Damian couldn't answer.
The man walked into the light.
Same eyes as Damian.
Same posture.
Older.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakable.
Damian's father had been buried fifteen years earlier.
May you like
Sebastian Voss looked up at the window.
And smiled.
