Chapter 3 - Warehouse Seventeen
Lana could not breathe.
The woman was older than Ingrid had been in Lana’s last memory, but the resemblance was unmistakable.
Same gray eyes.
Same narrow chin.
Same way of holding her shoulders.
“Who are you?”
The woman looked at Lana.
“My name is Elise Bauer.”
Lana stared.
“Bauer?”
“Ingrid was my sister.”
Victor lowered his weapon slightly.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“So are you, according to several people.”
Elise stepped aside.
“Come inside.”
Warehouse Seventeen contained no freight.
It contained history.
Metal shelves held ledgers, photographs, videotapes, and sealed evidence boxes.
Leo stared around.
“What is this?”
“The reason Klaus wants Victor dead.”
Elise looked at Lana.
“And the reason they needed you.”
Twenty-two years earlier, she explained, Hawthorne Seventeen had been a secret clearinghouse used by a criminal shipping alliance. Politicians, customs officers, police commanders, and organized-crime families had all moved illegal cargo through the docks.
Ingrid had been their accountant.
Until she discovered children were being trafficked inside sealed containers.
She copied everything.
Victor, then a young dock lieutenant, helped her expose the operation internally.
The alliance retaliated.
People died.
Records disappeared.
Ingrid escaped with Lana.
Victor survived an assassination attempt and spent the next two decades building enough power that nobody could easily finish the job.
“But why me?” Lana asked.
Elise pointed toward the brass key.
“Ingrid divided the evidence.”
The physical archive was here.
But its encryption required two things.
The key.
And a phrase Ingrid had taught only Lana.
Lana laughed once, without humor.
“I was eight.”
“She disguised it as a bedtime rhyme.”
Lana remembered immediately.
Seven ships sleep where black tides turn.
Victor watched her.
Elise nodded.
“That’s the first line.”
Lana felt sick.
“All these years?”
“Ingrid wanted you outside this world.”
Victor’s expression tightened.
“She succeeded until tonight.”
Elise looked at him.
“No. Tonight proves they found her years ago.”
A monitor suddenly activated.
Security footage appeared.
Sarah Hale sat in another section of the warehouse.
Alive.
Gavin rushed forward.
“Sarah!”
The feed was recorded.
A timestamp showed three hours earlier.
A man entered the frame.
His face remained hidden.
Sarah looked up at him.
“You promised Gavin wouldn't be hurt.”
The man answered.
“Gavin was always expendable.”
Victor recognized the voice.
Lana saw it in his face.
“Who?”
Victor said nothing.
The recording continued.
Sarah asked, “And Victor?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“And Lana?”
A pause.
“She opens the archive.”
“And afterward?”
The man stepped partly into the light.
Leo swore.
Victor went completely still.
Lana recognized him too.
She had seen him countless times at Hawthorne Grill.
Always beside Victor.
Always trusted.
Always smiling.
Marcus Vale.
Victor’s chief financial officer.
His oldest friend.
The recording ended.
Leo turned toward Victor.
“Marcus has access to everything.”
“Security schedules,” Victor said.
“Dock rotations.”
“Your houses.”
Victor looked at Lana.
“And Hawthorne reservations.”
Elise crossed the room.
“There’s more.”
She opened a ledger.
Marcus Vale’s father had been one of the original architects of the trafficking network.
Victor stared at the signature.
EDWARD VALE.
“He’s finishing his father’s work.”
“No,” Elise said. “He’s trying to erase it.”
A noise sounded outside.
Engines.
Many.
Leo checked the camera.
Black vehicles surrounded the warehouse.
“They found us.”
Elise moved toward a hidden panel.
“There’s a tunnel.”
Victor turned to Lana.
“Go.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
She stared at him.
“You say that like people usually believe you.”
For the first time, Victor almost smiled.
“Tonight would be a good time to start.”
Gunfire erupted outside.
They ran.
The tunnel descended beneath the riverfront.
Gavin stayed close to Lana.
“Sarah is alive.”
“Yes.”
“I’m getting her back.”
“You are.”
They reached an underground junction.
Three passages.
Elise pointed left.
“That reaches Pier Nine.”
A phone vibrated.
Victor’s.
Marcus Vale.
Victor answered.
“Marcus.”
His old friend laughed.
“You always were difficult to kill.”
“Where is Sarah?”
“Alive.”
“For now?”
“For as long as Lana cooperates.”
Victor looked at her.
“What do you want?”
“The archive.”
“You already know where it is.”
“I need the second key.”
Victor frowned.
Lana held up the brass key.
“This?”
Marcus laughed again.
“No, Lana.”
She froze.
“Your grandmother gave you two keys.”
“I only have one.”
“Not according to Ingrid.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“What is the second?”
Marcus lowered his voice.
“The thing Lana has carried every day since she was eight.”
Lana instinctively touched the thin chain around her neck.
A tiny silver pendant rested beneath her blouse.
Her grandmother’s last gift.
She pulled it out.
Victor stared.
It was not a pendant.
It was a miniature key.
May you like
And engraved on its back was one name.
MARLOW.
