Chapter 2 - Greenhouse Nine
Nikolai had his gun out before the door moved another inch.
“Behind me.”
Vera ignored him.
Dmitri did not.
He caught her arm and pulled her behind a concrete planter as two security men moved forward.
The storage door opened.
Nobody emerged.
Nikolai approached first.
“Clear.”
The room beyond contained gardening tools, fertilizer, spare irrigation equipment, and a metal shelving unit Vera had organized herself.
Nothing unusual.
Then she noticed the floor.
Mud.
Fresh mud.
A footprint led to the back wall.
“There isn’t another entrance,” Vera said.
Nikolai followed the print.
Dmitri moved the shelving unit.
Behind it was a narrow steel door.
Vera stared.
“I’ve worked here for three years.”
Nikolai looked equally surprised.
“I didn’t know this existed.”
The brass key fit.
Beyond the door, stone steps descended beneath the estate.
Vera looked at Nikolai.
“Greenhouse Nine.”
He nodded.
They went down together.
The tunnel ended in a room untouched by time.
Dust covered a desk.
Old filing cabinets lined the walls.
A green banker’s lamp sat beneath a photograph.
Vera walked toward it.
The picture showed the estate twenty-two years earlier.
The greenhouse had been different then.
Smaller.
Beside it stood a little girl.
Dark hair.
Serious eyes.
Vera’s hands began shaking.
She knew that face.
It was hers.
Written beneath the photograph were two words.
VERA SULLIVAN.
Nikolai stood beside her.
“You were here.”
“I don’t remember.”
Dmitri opened a filing cabinet.
“Boss.”
Inside were folders.
Each bore a name.
Sullivan.
Helian.
Voss.
Nikolai opened the Sullivan file.
The first document was a contract between Anton Voss and Daniel Sullivan.
But Daniel had not been a mechanic.
He had been an accountant.
Specifically, the accountant responsible for tracing money moving through shell corporations controlled jointly by Anton Voss and Leon Helian.
“He found something,” Vera said.
Nikolai read further.
“He found everything.”
Daniel had discovered that Helian was trafficking weapons through companies Anton believed were being used only for smuggling luxury goods.
When Anton learned the truth, he attempted to end the partnership.
Helian threatened both families.
Daniel copied the financial records.
Then Bellweather burned.
Vera sat down.
“My father ran.”
“Yes.”
“With me.”
Nikolai found another page.
“No.”
She looked up.
“What?”
“He ran with two children.”
Vera stared at him.
“I don’t have a sibling.”
Nikolai slowly placed the document before her.
Daniel Sullivan had listed two dependents.
Vera Sullivan, age six.
Elias Sullivan, age nine.
Vera read the name three times.
“I would remember a brother.”
“Unless someone made certain you didn’t.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
But even as she said it, fragments moved through her memory.
A bicycle with blue handlebars.
A boy laughing.
Someone telling her to hide beneath a staircase.
A hand holding hers in darkness.
Vera pressed both palms against her temples.
Nikolai crouched before her.
“Stop.”
“I remember something.”
“You don’t have to force it.”
“A boy.”
His voice softened.
“Elias?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at him.
“Why didn’t my father tell me?”
Nikolai had no answer.
Dmitri continued searching.
He found a cassette recorder.
Beside it was a tape labeled VERA.
The machine still had batteries, but they were corroded.
Vera almost laughed from sheer frustration.
“Of course.”
“I’ll have it restored,” Dmitri said.
“No. Find batteries.”
Twenty minutes later, the recorder clicked.
Static filled the room.
Then a man’s voice.
Daniel Sullivan.
Vera knew it immediately.
Her eyes filled.
“If Vera ever hears this, then I failed to keep the past buried.”
She covered her mouth.
Nikolai remained beside her.
Daniel continued.
“Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I told you Elias died because it was the only way to stop you looking for him.”
Vera’s tears fell.
“He didn’t die in Bellweather.”
The tape crackled.
“Elias was taken.”
Nikolai’s expression hardened.
“Leon Helian took him because he believed I had the ledger.”
Vera whispered, “What ledger?”
The recording answered.
“The ledger proves who financed Helian’s network. Anton helped me hide it. He built a room beneath Greenhouse Nine.”
Dmitri looked around.
“This room.”
Daniel’s voice continued.
“But the ledger isn’t here.”
Vera closed her eyes.
Of course it wasn’t.
“I put it somewhere nobody connected to Voss or Helian would ever search.”
Static.
Then:
“With Vera.”
Her eyes opened.
Nikolai stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
The tape clicked off.
They searched everything.
Nothing.
Finally Vera remembered the only possession she had kept from childhood.
A battered wooden music box.
It sat in her cottage.
They hurried upstairs.
Nikolai refused to let Vera cross the grounds without four guards.
This time she did not argue.
Her cottage door was open.
Vera stopped.
“I locked it.”
Nikolai moved in front of her.
Inside, drawers had been emptied.
Mattress overturned.
Closet destroyed.
The music box was gone.
On Vera’s kitchen table sat a satellite phone.
The same model she had refused that morning.
It rang.
Nikolai answered.
A distorted voice said, “Bring Vera Sullivan to Bellweather.”
“No.”
“Nikolai Voss.”
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed.
The caller laughed.
“You sound like your father.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“We don’t have it.”
“But she knows where it is.”
Vera shook her head.
“I don’t.”
The caller heard.
“Hello, Vera.”
Something about the voice made her skin prickle.
Not recognition exactly.
Something older.
“You have six hours,” he said.
“For what?”
“To remember.”
The call ended.
A message appeared.
One photograph.
Vera opened it.
A man sat tied to a chair.
His hair was dark.
His face bruised.
He appeared to be in his late thirties.
Around his neck hung a silver pendant.
Vera touched her own throat.
She had the matching half in a jewelry box upstairs.
A childhood pendant she had owned for as long as she remembered.
The man in the photograph was wearing the other half.
May you like
Below the image was one sentence.
YOUR BROTHER HAS BEEN WAITING TWENTY-TWO YEARS.
