Chapter 13 - Grant’s Return
Grant had awakened two hours earlier.
Against medical advice, he left the hospital with Detective Ruiz.
The hospital kidnapping had exposed the compromised officers.
Ruiz arrested the lieutenant who helped take Lily.
He gave them access codes for Callahan headquarters.
Grant entered the building through the same underground route Victor had used.
He shut down the elevators remotely.
Thomas Vale stood frozen beside us.
Grant’s voice filled the elevator speaker.
“Release Emma and Lily.”
Thomas drew his gun.
“You cannot see what I’m doing.”
“No.”
“But I know you.”
“You hold the gun in your right hand.”
“You shift your weight when you are afraid.”
“And you always believe the next betrayal will fix the last one.”
Thomas aimed toward the ceiling camera.
“You are finished, Grant.”
“Then why are you trapped in my elevator?”
Thomas fired.
The camera shattered.
Lily screamed.
The elevator lights went out.
A hatch opened above us.
A tactical officer dropped a stun device through the opening.
Thomas fired again.
The bullet struck the metal wall.
I pulled Lily to the floor.
The stun device discharged.
Thomas collapsed.
Seconds later, Ruiz’s team opened the elevator doors manually.
Grant stood on the other side.
His left arm rested in a sling.
His face was pale.
Lily ran toward him.
He nearly fell when she struck his chest.
But he held her.
“You came back.”
“I told you I would.”
She touched the bandage beneath his shirt.
“You got hurt.”
“I have been hurt worse by board meetings.”
Lily looked confused.
I laughed despite the pain in my face.
Grant looked at me.
“Are you all right?”
“I have had better workweeks.”
Ruiz arrested Thomas.
He immediately asked for a deal.
“He knows the fire plan,” I said.
Ruiz turned.
“What fire?”
Thomas looked at Victor’s armed guards.
Then at Grant.
“He ordered accelerants placed on the archive level.”
“Detonation?”
“Remote.”
“Who has the trigger?”
“Victor.”
Grant used the building system to evacuate every employee.
Fire crews surrounded the block.
Victor and Renata had already left for Blue Moon Depository.
They believed Thomas was moving Lily and me into position.
They did not know the plan had failed.
Ruiz wanted to intercept them immediately.
Grant examined Claire’s letter.
“It may be another trap.”
“It is still evidence.”
“And Victor has the key.”
Thomas spoke from the floor.
“He plans to empty the box and destroy the vault.”
“What is inside?” Ruiz asked.
“I don’t know.”
Grant looked at the security monitor.
Victor’s vehicle had left six minutes earlier.
“We need to reach the depository.”
“You need to return to the hospital,” Ruiz said.
“My daughter was kidnapped from that hospital.”
“We changed the entire detail.”
Grant looked at Lily.
She held tightly to his coat.
“I’m not leaving her again.”
Lily shook her head.
“I want Emma.”
Grant’s expression softened.
“You can have both of us.”
Ruiz arranged an armored vehicle.
Lily remained between Grant and me during the drive.
She held the silver music box in her lap.
“Mommy said the box sings when people lie,” she whispered.
Grant looked at her.
“When did she say that?”
“Before rain night.”
“Did she show you the key?”
Lily nodded.
“She put it inside.”
“Did she tell you what it opened?”
“A room with no windows.”
The Blue Moon Depository occupied three underground levels beneath the Beaumont Hotel.
The private vaults had no windows.
When we arrived, smoke poured from the hotel entrance.
Victor had moved faster than expected.
Guests ran into the street.
Firefighters entered the lobby.
Ruiz contacted the depository manager.
No one answered.
We descended through the parking garage.
The steel security door had been forced open.
A guard lay unconscious beside it.
Grant checked his pulse.
“Alive.”
Inside the main vault, hundreds of deposit boxes stood open.
Renata crouched beside a large metal container.
Victor held Claire’s key.
He turned it in the lock.
Nothing happened.
Renata looked at the music box in Lily’s hands.
“The key is incomplete.”
Lily stepped behind Grant.
Renata pointed toward her.
“The star.”
The memory card compartment inside Lily’s bracelet had contained more than evidence.
The tiny metal star also fit into the top of the brass key.
It completed the mechanism.
Victor raised his gun.
“Give me the bracelet.”
Grant moved in front of Lily.
“No.”
Victor smiled.
“You still think this ends with justice.”
“No.”
Grant looked around the vault.
“I think it ends with you discovering that Claire was smarter than all of us.”
He pressed a button on the music box.
The melody changed.
A hidden microphone activated.
Claire’s voice filled the vault.
“Victor, if you are hearing this, you found the wrong box.”
The floor beneath Victor’s feet clicked.
Steel barriers dropped around him.
The vault sealed him inside a security cage.
Renata screamed and ran toward the exit.
Ruiz blocked her path.
Renata pulled a small detonator from her pocket.
“If I press this, Callahan headquarters burns.”
Thomas had lied.
Victor did not have the trigger.
May you like
Renata did.
And her thumb was already pressing down.
