Part 18
The basement vault was silent.
The only sound was the heavy, rhythmic thud of our shoes on the concrete steps.
Julian Vance led the way, his security keycard gripped tightly in his hand.
Two armed bank security guards followed right behind us, their hands resting on their holsters.
Derek stayed close to me, his eyes darting to every shadow.
The air down here was thick, smelling of cold steel and old grease.
We reached a massive, circular steel door.
The vault.
Julian swiped his card and entered a six-digit code.
With a heavy, pneumatic hiss, the locking mechanisms turned.
The door swung open slowly.
Inside were rows upon rows of stainless steel safe deposit boxes, gleaming under harsh fluorescent lights.
At the very back of the vault, a small frosted glass door marked Private Viewing Room was lit from within.
We walked toward it quietly.
Through the glass, I could see the silhouette of a woman sitting at a desk.
She was typing furiously on a terminal.
The security guards stepped forward, ready to push the door open.
"Wait," I whispered, holding up my hand.
"Let me go first."
"Mom, no," Derek hissed. "It's too dangerous."
"She's alone, Derek," I said. "And she's running out of time."
"If the guards rush her, she'll just delete everything."
"I need to look her in the eye."
Before Julian could object, I pushed the frosted glass door open.
The woman didn't look up immediately.
"I told you to wait upstairs, Julian," she said.
Her voice was calm. Controlled.
An older voice.
When she didn't get an answer, she finally raised her head.
I felt my breath trap in my throat.
The woman sitting at the desk wasn't a stranger.
She wore an elegant Chanel suit. Her silver hair was perfectly coiffed.
It was Victoria Brooks.
The mother of Cassandra and Felicia.
A woman I had known thirty years ago, when our husbands worked in the same courthouse.
A woman I thought had moved to Florida after her husband passed away.
"Eleanor," Victoria said.
She didn't look surprised. She looked tired.
She stopped typing and folded her hands on the desk.
"You always were too stubborn for your own good."
"Victoria," I said, my voice shaking slightly. "You did all of this?"
"My daughters are fools, Eleanor," she said smoothly, leaning back.
"Cassandra has ambition but no patience."
"Felicia has beauty but no brains."
"They were supposed to just get the money from your son and move on."
"But they got greedy."
"They wanted the house."
"They brought in Richard Vance, and Richard brought in his idiot nephew."
"And the moment Richard got involved, the whole thing became messy."
Derek stepped into the room, his face twisted with disbelief.
"You used your own daughters as bait?" he asked, his voice filled with disgust.
Victoria looked at him with cold indifference.
"They wanted a luxurious life, Derek."
"They just didn't want to work for it."
"I gave them an opportunity."
"And now they are paying the price for their incompetence."
"Where is Evelyn?" I demanded. "Your granddaughter."
Victoria's expression didn't change.
"Evelyn is safe."
"She's currently on a flight to Costa Rica."
"I'm not a monster, Eleanor. I protect my blood."
"But I also protect my investments."
She pointed to the terminal screen.
"I've just finished wiping the secondary servers."
"The digital connection between my family and your son's money is completely erased."
"As far as the law is concerned, Derek Parker voluntarily transferred that money to an unlisted account, and the files were lost in a system glitch."
"You have no proof left."
I took a step closer to the desk.
I looked at the screen, then back at her cold, perfect face.
"You're wrong, Victoria," I said.
"I don't need the digital files anymore."
"Because five minutes ago, before we came down here..."
"...Julian Vance called the FBI."
"They aren't tracking the wire transfers anymore."
May you like
"They are tracking the physical location of this terminal."
"And you are sitting right in front of it."
