Chapter 6 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
The cab dropped us off two blocks away from the Crestview Towers.
The building was a towering monolith of glass and steel, piercing the gray Chicago sky. Ten years ago, I had stood at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, so proud of what I believed my husband had accomplished. Now, looking up at the structure, all I saw was a monument built on lies and cheap steel.
“Put your hood up, Noah,” I whispered, pulling my own coat tightly around me to shield my face from the security cameras.
We didn't go through the main lobby. As the majority shareholder and co-founder, I knew the building's blueprints intimately—the real ones, the ones I had approved before Daniel swapped the steel.
I led Noah down an alleyway to a heavy, unmarked service door. I punched in a six-digit override code I hadn't used in eight years.
The red light turned green. The door clicked open.
We slipped inside, bypassing the security desk entirely, and took the freight elevator directly to the top floor. The ride up was agonizingly slow, the mechanical hum of the elevator amplifying the drumming of my heart.
The doors opened to the penthouse level.
Daniel’s private corporate office spanned the entire floor. It was a lavish, cold space filled with modern art and dark leather furniture.
It was Saturday morning. The office was completely empty.
I walked straight past the receptionist's desk and into Daniel’s massive corner office.
My eyes immediately locked onto the corner of the room.
The antique grandfather clock from the photograph was still there. It was a massive piece of dark mahogany, ticking steadily, counting down the seconds of a lie that had lasted a decade.
I pulled the faded photograph from my pocket. My mother’s red circle was drawn perfectly around the clock face.
“Mom,” Noah whispered, staying close to my side. “Is that where the real blueprints are?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” I said.
I walked over to the clock. I opened the glass door that protected the swinging brass pendulum. I ran my hands along the inside of the wooden casing, feeling for a false panel or a hidden lever.
Nothing. The wood was solid.
I stepped back, frustrated. I looked at the photograph again. My mother was meticulous. She wouldn't have circled the clock if the secret wasn't inside it.
I looked closer at the faded image.
The clock in the photograph read 3:15.
I looked up at the actual clock. It was currently 10:45 AM.
I reached inside the clock face, grabbed the heavy brass minute hand, and manually rotated it backward. The gears ground in protest, making a terrible scratching noise, but I forced it.
I moved the hands until they rested perfectly at 3:15.
A loud, mechanical click echoed from behind the wall.
It wasn't the clock that opened.
The heavy, built-in mahogany bookshelf directly next to the clock swung forward about two inches.
Noah gasped.
I wedged my fingers into the crack and pulled. The entire bookshelf swung open on hidden hinges, revealing a small, dark walk-in safe hidden inside the architecture of the building itself.
I reached in and flipped the light switch.
The safe wasn't filled with money. It was a shrine to Daniel’s paranoia.
There were stacks of burner phones, rows of external hard drives, and dozens of manila folders labeled with names of city officials, politicians, and inspectors. Daniel hadn't just bribed Arthur Lane. He had built an entire empire of blackmail to ensure no one ever looked too closely at his buildings.
I frantically began pulling folders off the shelves, searching for the original Crestview blueprints.
But as I pulled a thick binder from the top shelf, something heavy fell out and clattered onto the metal floor of the safe.
I knelt down and picked it up.
It was a heavy, perfectly tailored black cashmere coat.
I recognized it instantly. It was the custom coat Daniel had worn the night the Crestview Towers opened. He had refused to wear it ever since, claiming it was too heavy, but he had never thrown it away.
“Why is he keeping an old coat in a hidden safe?” Noah asked, crouching beside me.
I ran my hands over the thick cashmere. The fabric felt stiff near the collar.
I turned the coat inside out.
The silk lining near the left breast pocket had been carefully cut open and restitched by hand with black thread.
I didn't hesitate. I grabbed a heavy metal letter opener from one of the shelves and sliced through the stitching.
I reached into the lining of the coat.
My fingers brushed against a thick, folded stack of papers.
I pulled them out.
They were the original safety inspection reports for the Crestview Towers.
But they weren't signed by Arthur Lane.
They were signed by a structural engineer named Marcus Vance. The same intern who had played my mother’s video at the gala last night.
I stared at the signature in absolute shock. Marcus hadn't just been a loyal employee. He had been the original engineer on this project ten years ago.
And scrawled across the top of the report, in Daniel’s unmistakable handwriting, was a terrifying note:
Vance knows about the steel. Discredit him. Ensure he never works in this city again.
Before I could process the magnitude of the betrayal, a slow, mocking clap echoed from the main office.
I spun around.
May you like
Standing in the doorway of the hidden safe, holding a suppressed pistol pointed directly at my chest, was Daniel.
“I always knew your mother was too smart for her own good,” Daniel said, a sick, twisted smile on his face. “But I didn't think she passed it on to you.”
