Chapter 3 - Package 417
Marcus did not move.
Nobody did.
The phone remained against his ear.
“Finish it now.”
The line disconnected.
Emergency lights flickered red along the floor.
Adrian looked toward Marcus.
“Who was that?”
Marcus stared at the screen.
“Unknown.”
“Convenient.”
“I don't know who called.”
A bodyguard emerged from the rear corridor.
Blood ran from a cut along his temple.
“Shooter's gone.”
“Who?”
“Couldn't see him. He fired through the service entrance.”
“Anyone hit?”
“No.”
Adrian looked at me.
“You?”
I shook my head.
My ears rang from the gunshot.
My hands would not stop trembling.
I hated that Marcus saw.
For years, he had known how to read every small sign of fear in me.
Tonight I wanted to give him nothing.
Adrian stood.
“We're leaving.”
Marcus rose too.
“No.”
Adrian turned.
“No?”
“If you take Elena out through the front, they'll be waiting.”
“Who?”
“Meridian.”
“You keep using a company name like it's a person.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Because you still think Meridian is a consulting firm.”
“What is it?”
Marcus glanced toward me.
Then he said something that made my stomach sink.
“A marketplace.”
Adrian waited.
“For information,” Marcus continued. “Secrets. leverage. evidence. careers. People think they're paying for consulting. They're paying to make problems disappear.”
“And Daniel?”
“He discovered it.”
“Why was he working with you?”
“He suspected someone inside his businesses was feeding Meridian information.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Daniel never told me.”
“Yet you helped cover his audit.”
“Yes.”
Adrian took one step closer.
“Why?”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“Because I was thirty years old and making more money than my father earned in twenty years. Because Morton told me I was being promoted. Because I believed I was smarter than everyone.”
He looked at me.
“And because by the time I understood what Meridian really was, I was already part of it.”
There was shame in his face.
I would have cared yesterday.
Tonight I remembered his palm striking my cheek.
“That's not an excuse.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
“Elena—”
“You're sorry because you're scared.”
He stopped talking.
Adrian looked at the red emergency lights.
“Where is package 417?”
Marcus shook his head.
“I've never seen it.”
“What does the key open?”
“I don't know.”
“You reacted.”
“Because Daniel had that key.”
Adrian's expression changed.
“You saw it?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“The week before he died.”
“Where?”
“My office.”
Marcus looked toward the leather folder.
“He had the folder too.”
Adrian lifted it.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“How did it get here?”
“I don't know.”
Adrian frowned.
The bartender appeared from behind the counter.
His name was Luis. I knew because a brass badge on his vest caught the red light.
“Mr. Vale.”
Adrian turned.
“Who put this folder in my booth?”
Luis looked confused.
“It was already there when I started.”
“What time?”
“Six.”
“Who opened the room?”
“Mr. Brennan.”
One of the bodyguards looked toward Adrian.
“Brennan called out sick tonight.”
Adrian's face hardened.
“Call him.”
The guard dialed.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Adrian looked at Marcus.
“Do you know Brennan?”
Marcus shook his head.
I looked at the folder.
It had been waiting.
The number.
The key.
Someone had arranged this.
Someone had known Marcus would invite me.
Someone had known I carried information.
Maybe the message wasn't a warning.
Maybe it was manipulation.
“Adrian.”
He looked at me.
“What if whoever sent those texts wanted us to find the key?”
Marcus said, “Exactly.”
I glared at him.
“That doesn't make you trustworthy.”
“I didn't say it did.”
Adrian turned the brass key over in his palm.
A tiny engraving sat near the teeth.
Not a number.
Two letters.
GC.
He handed it to me.
“Mean anything?”
I shook my head.
Marcus leaned closer.
Then froze.
“What?”
He pointed.
“Grand Central.”
Adrian looked at him.
“Why?”
“Daniel once asked me about private storage near Grand Central Terminal.”
“When?”
“Two days before he died.”
Adrian's eyes sharpened.
“What kind of storage?”
“Safe deposit lockers. Luggage storage. I don't know.”
We left Belladonna through a service exit.
Adrian refused to use his normal car.
Instead, one of his men brought around a dark SUV from an underground garage.
Marcus sat in the back beside a bodyguard.
I sat up front.
Adrian drove.
That surprised me.
So did the fact that he knew exactly how to disappear into late-night Manhattan traffic without seeming rushed.
“You do this often?” I asked.
“Drive?”
“Leave buildings after someone shoots at you.”
“Less often than you'd think.”
Behind us Marcus muttered, “More often than normal people.”
Adrian looked at him in the mirror.
Marcus became quiet.
Grand Central was less than ten minutes away.
During the drive, I thought about the file.
The actual copy was not in my apartment.
Not at work.
Not in the camera.
I had removed the memory card and hidden it inside an old cookbook at my sister's house in Queens.
Nobody knew.
At least, I hoped nobody knew.
Adrian parked in a private garage two blocks away.
One bodyguard stayed with Marcus.
The other came with us.
Inside Grand Central, crowds had thinned but not disappeared.
Late trains.
Tourists.
Workers.
Couples.
Normal people living normal nights.
I envied them.
Marcus guided us toward the lower level.
“There used to be private lockers near Track 31.”
“Used to?”
“They were removed years ago.”
Adrian held up the key.
“Then this opens something else.”
We searched the key.
GC.
The combination could mean anything.
Locker 417.
Room 417.
Garage C, space 417.
Grand Central.
Adrian called someone.
“Check every property Daniel owned, rented, or used near Grand Central. Search for 417.”
The response came three minutes later.
Adrian listened.
Then said, “Send it.”
He showed me the screen.
A photograph of an old storage receipt.
GRAND CENTRAL STORAGE ANNEX
LOCKER 417.
Address on East 44th.
Marcus whispered, “That's it.”
The annex looked closed.
Steel shutters.
No lights.
Adrian knocked once.
No answer.
His bodyguard disappeared around the side.
A minute later a rear door clicked open.
I stared at Adrian.
“Do I want to know?”
“No.”
We entered.
Dust.
Rows of metal lockers.
Old luggage storage.
The place looked abandoned.
Numbers climbed along the corridor.
My heart began pounding.
Adrian inserted the key.
It turned.
Nobody spoke.
He opened the door.
Inside was a small black case.
No cash.
No gun.
No dramatic stack of documents.
Just the case.
Adrian placed it on a counter.
The combination lock required four digits.
Marcus stared.
“Try Daniel's birthday.”
Wrong.
Adrian tried 0417.
Wrong.
I looked at the folder.
“What's the date on the receipt?”
The guard checked.
“October 9.”
Marcus said, “Try 1009.”
Wrong.
I studied the black case.
There was a tiny scratch near the hinge.
Four marks.
One.
Nine.
Eight.
Six.
“1986.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Why?”
“It's scratched underneath.”
He entered it.
Click.
The case opened.
Inside was a flash drive.
Three photographs.
And a handwritten letter.
Adrian recognized the handwriting immediately.
His breathing stopped.
“Daniel.”
He unfolded the letter.
Adrian,
If you're reading this, I failed.
Do not trust the audit.
Do not trust Meridian.
And do not trust anyone who tells you my death was an accident.
Package 417 contains proof.
But the proof is divided.
The ledger identifies the people.
The flash drive identifies the system.
The final key is with someone Meridian will never suspect.
Someone who doesn't know what she has.
Adrian stopped reading.
I felt the room tilt.
Marcus looked at me.
“No.”
Adrian continued.
Her name is Elena Carter.
I could hear my heartbeat.
I stared at the page.
“What?”
Marcus stepped back.
“That isn't possible.”
Adrian handed me the letter.
My name was there.
In Daniel Vale's handwriting.
Written before he died.
I had never met Daniel Vale.
At least, I didn't think I had.
I read the next line.
If Elena ever finds this, tell her to look inside the photograph taken on May 14.
I looked at the three photographs.
One showed Daniel outside a restaurant.
One showed him standing with Adrian.
The third showed a charity gala.
I picked it up.
My hands went numb.
I was in the background.
Three years younger.
Standing beside Marcus.
Daniel was twenty feet behind us.
And someone had circled my purse in black ink.
Marcus whispered, “What did you have that night?”
I stared at the photograph.
“I don't know.”
Then I remembered.
At that gala, Marcus had asked me to hold his spare phone because his jacket pockets were full.
He never asked for it back until the next morning.
Adrian looked at Marcus.
“What was on that phone?”
Marcus's face changed.
“Elena.”
“What?”
He swallowed.
“That wasn't my phone.”
A noise came from the hallway.
Metal scraping.
Someone was outside locker 417.
Adrian reached inside his jacket.
The doorknob slowly turned.
Then a familiar female voice called my name.
“Elena?”
May you like
My blood froze.
Because the woman standing outside was my sister.
