Chapter 3
Ruth Ellison had lived across the hall from me since I was a teenager.
She watered my plants when I traveled.
She brought soup when my father died.
She was seventy-four years old and used a cane after hip surgery.
Now Diane had her tied up outside my apartment.
“I’m going there,” I said.
Agent Cole blocked the door.
“You have a concussion.”
“Ruth is there because of me.”
“Federal agents are already moving.”
“That woman entered my hospital room once. She can get past your agents again.”
Rachel picked up my coat.
“Elena is right about one thing. Diane knows we’re watching the apartment, yet she went there anyway.”
Cole frowned.
“Which means?”
“Either she is desperate, or she wants us to follow.”
“I still have to go,” I said.
Cole studied me.
Then he looked at the bandage around my head.
“You remain in the vehicle until I say otherwise.”
I did not promise.
Twenty minutes later, an unmarked SUV stopped across the street from my building.
Police cruisers blocked both exits.
Agents filled the lobby.
The hallway camera had gone dark three minutes after the image was taken.
No one had come out.
Agent Cole gave instructions over his radio.
I sat beside Rachel in the back seat.
My phone rang again.
Ruth’s name appeared.
I answered before anyone could stop me.
“Elena?” Ruth whispered.
“Ruth, where are you?”
“In your father’s study.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right.”
A man shouted in the background.
Ruth gasped.
Then Diane took the phone.
“She is unharmed for now.”
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
“It is in federal custody.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I looked at Agent Cole.
He reached inside his jacket and touched the evidence pouch.
Diane continued.
“Agent Cole showed you a duplicate. The real key is somewhere in that apartment.”
Cole shook his head.
“She’s lying,” he whispered.
“Why did Derek have a duplicate?” I asked Diane.
“Because he was supposed to find the original.”
Ruth cried out.
A crashing sound followed.
My hand tightened around the phone.
“If you hurt her—”
“Come upstairs alone.”
The call ended.
Cole immediately ordered the tactical team to enter.
Agents rushed through the lobby.
I opened the car door.
Rachel grabbed my arm.
“You cannot go inside.”
“Diane will hurt Ruth when she sees them.”
“She may hurt both of you if you go.”
I looked at the building where I had grown up.
My father had taught me to ride a bicycle in the underground garage.
He had cooked terrible pancakes in the kitchen.
He had spent late nights working in the room Diane now occupied.
There was one thing about that apartment Derek had never understood.
My father had designed its security system himself.
“Give me your phone,” I said to Cole.
“Why?”
“The hallway camera is not the only camera.”
He handed it over.
I entered an old web address and typed a password I had not used in years.
BENNETT417.
Four hidden camera feeds appeared.
My father’s study.
The kitchen.
The front hallway.
The narrow service corridor behind the bookcase.
Diane stood in the study.
The man in the Meridian uniform was tearing panels from the wall.
Ruth sat in a chair with her wrists tied in front of her.
“She’s alive,” Rachel said.
The tactical team reached my floor.
Before they could enter, the man pressed a gun against Ruth’s shoulder.
Diane walked toward the hidden camera.
She looked directly into it.
Then she smiled.
“She knows,” I whispered.
Diane lifted a hammer and struck the lens.
The feed turned black.
Agent Cole spoke into his radio.
“Move now.”
A crash echoed from inside the building.
The team breached the apartment.
For several seconds, we heard only shouted commands.
Then gunfire exploded over Cole’s radio.
Rachel pushed my head down.
More shots followed.
An agent shouted that the suspects were moving through the service corridor.
The service corridor.
I sat up.
“It opens into the parking garage.”
Cole turned toward the driver.
“Move.”
The SUV sped around the block and descended into the underground garage.
The exit gate was already rising.
A black sedan raced toward it.
Ruth was visible in the back seat.
Diane sat beside her.
The man in uniform drove.
The sedan struck a parked car and kept moving.
Our driver accelerated.
The two vehicles reached the gate almost together.
A police cruiser turned across the exit.
The sedan swerved and slammed into a concrete pillar.
Airbags burst from the dashboard.
Agents surrounded the vehicle.
The driver stumbled out with blood on his forehead and dropped his weapon.
Diane shoved open the rear door.
She dragged Ruth out and held a piece of broken metal against her throat.
“Stay back!”
Agents raised their weapons.
Ruth trembled against her.
Diane looked wild now.
Her perfect hair had fallen across her face.
Dust covered her coat.
“Bring me Elena!”
Cole stepped in front of me.
“No.”
Diane pressed the metal closer to Ruth.
Ruth closed her eyes.
“Elena!” Diane screamed.
I moved around Cole.
Rachel tried to stop me, but I kept walking.
“I’m here.”
Diane’s face twisted.
“Where is the key?”
“I don’t know.”
“Your father told Ruth.”
I looked at my neighbor.
Ruth’s eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“Your father made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
Diane shook her violently.
“Tell her!”
Ruth looked toward my apartment window nine floors above us.
“The key is inside the last place you and your father felt safe.”
A memory flashed through me.
The winter I turned sixteen, Boston lost power during a storm.
My father and I sat in the dark kitchen and played chess by candlelight.
He had let me win.
Or I thought he had.
The chessboard.
It was still stored beneath the window seat.
Diane saw the realization on my face.
“Take me to it.”
“No.”
“She will die.”
I took another step.
“Let Ruth go, and I’ll take you upstairs.”
Cole whispered my name.
I ignored him.
Diane considered the offer.
Then she pushed Ruth toward the agents.
Ruth stumbled.
As Diane turned toward me, Ruth swung her cane from the ground.
It struck Diane behind the knees.
Diane fell hard.
Agents rushed forward.
Cole pulled me away.
The piece of metal slid across the concrete.
Diane screamed as she was handcuffed.
“You don’t know what he did!”
I knelt beside Ruth.
She wrapped both arms around me.
“I tried to keep them out,” she said.
“You did more than enough.”
Paramedics examined her while agents took Diane away.
The Meridian employee was identified as Victor Lane, the company’s head of private security.
He refused to speak.
Diane did not stop speaking.
She accused me of kidnapping.
She accused Ruth of attacking her.
She accused Agent Cole of working for my father.
No one listened.
I finally returned to the apartment after the tactical team cleared it.
The damage was worse than I expected.
Cabinets had been emptied.
Furniture had been overturned.
My father’s study wall had been opened from floor to ceiling.
Rachel stood beside the shattered plaster.
“They knew exactly where to look.”
“But they didn’t find it.”
I went to the window seat and lifted the wooden lid.
Blankets and old board games filled the compartment.
The chessboard lay at the bottom.
My father had carved it by hand.
One black square near the center was slightly raised.
I pressed it.
A hidden drawer slid from the side.
Inside was another brass key.
It also carried the number 417.
Beneath it was a sealed envelope bearing my name.
My fingers shook as I opened it.
Elena,
If you are reading this, someone has learned about the trust.
Do not take the key to the bank alone.
Take Margaret Sloan.
Trust Ruth.
Do not trust anyone connected to Meridian.
And if a man named Aaron Cole shows you a federal badge, ask him what happened in Providence.
Dad
Agent Cole stood a few feet behind me.
I read the final lines twice.
“What happened in Providence?” I asked.
Cole did not answer.
Rachel looked at him.
“Aaron?”
His face had changed.
He closed the apartment door.
“Eight years ago, your father was supposed to meet me in Providence,” he said. “He had evidence that could have ended Meridian.”
“And?”
“He never arrived.”
“Why?”
“Because someone told Meridian where the meeting was.”
“Who knew?”
“Your father. Me. And one other federal agent.”
Rachel folded her arms.
“Which agent?”
Cole stared at the key in my hand.
“My former partner.”
“Where is he now?”
“He disappeared the night your father died.”
My phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from Derek.
My bail was paid by someone inside your father’s investigation. Cole is hiding the truth. Ask him who signed the Providence report.
I showed Rachel.
She read it aloud.
Agent Cole’s expression hardened.
“I signed it.”
My blood turned cold.
Before I could ask another question, a sound came from the service corridor.
Someone was behind the bookcase.
Cole drew his weapon.
The hidden door opened slowly.
A woman in her sixties stepped into the room.
She held an old photograph in one hand.
I recognized my father standing beside her.
She looked at Agent Cole and said, “Put the gun down, Aaron. You have lied to Elena long enough.”
Then she turned to me.
“My name is Margaret Sloan. I was your father’s attorney.”
May you like
She held up the photograph.
“And the man standing beside Thomas Bennett is Derek’s father.”
