Chapter 17 - The Signature That Couldn't Be Hers
Roman felt the pavement tilt beneath him.
“Anika would never do that.”
Mara sat on the ambulance step. “I didn't say she did. I said her name is on the paperwork.”
Anika answered Roman's call on the second ring.
“Tell me you aren't standing too close to that fire,” she said.
“Where were you at 3:14 this afternoon?”
Silence. Then, “With our lawyers. Why?”
“Victor put your name on a bank authorization.”
“Of course he did.” Her voice shook. “He has my digital credentials. When you suspended his access last spring, I found attempts to copy my security key. I reported them to Dax.”
Dax, who was already under arrest, had never filed the report.
“Did you keep a copy?” Roman asked.
“I sent it to my personal email. I know better than to trust one server.”
Within twenty minutes, Mara had the original warning and a timestamped reply from Dax claiming the issue was resolved. It was enough to challenge the forged bank authorization, but not enough to locate Victor.
At the protected apartment, Elena sat on the floor with Maisie, building a crooked city from wooden blocks. Maisie had named every building: the library, the ice-cream store, the place where moms worked, and the place where kids could sleep if a flood came.
“Why that one?” Elena asked.
“Because not everybody has a big house,” Maisie said.
Elena kissed the top of her head.
Her phone rang from an unlisted number.
“Elena Ward,” a man said. “You have something that belongs to me.”
She knew Victor's voice immediately.
“I have my daughter. That's all I need.”
“You have a copy of the old plans. Your grandfather left a note on them. I need that note.”
Elena kept her tone steady. “I gave the plans to the police.”
“Not the ones in your head. Tell me where the emergency lockbox is.”
The room went cold. Her grandfather had once described a sealed document box beneath a public memorial near the river. He called it the place where people who didn't own the town could still keep their truth.
Elena had thought it was only a story.
“Don't call again,” she said.
Victor sighed. “I don't want your little girl. I want the last page Joseph Calder hid before he died.”
The line disconnected.
May you like
Underneath the wooden city, Maisie had drawn a yellow star on the block marked LIBRARY.
Elena looked at it and suddenly knew exactly where the box was.
