Chapter 6: Box 214
They reached Union Station at eleven fifteen.
Mr.
Bell led them through the nearly empty concourse while Elaine called station security.
“Adelaide was detained,” Marnie said.
“Questioned, then released pending the laboratory report,” Elaine replied.
“She must have called Victor immediately.”
Christian pointed toward the lockers.
“There.”
Locker 214 stood open.
Adelaide was kneeling before it, pushing papers into a metal waste bin.
“Step away,” Christian said.
She turned with a lighter in her hand.
“You should have drunk the wine.”
Christian stopped several feet from her.
“Put down the lighter.”
“Give me the recording first.”
“You tried to make me helpless, Adelaide.”
“I tried to protect what Victor promised me.”
“What did he promise?”
“Ten percent of the hotel sale and a place on the new board.”
Marnie moved beside Christian.
“You threatened my mother for money?”
Adelaide’s mouth tightened.
“Your mother was leverage.
Nothing more.”
Marnie flinched as if the words had landed across her face.
Mr.
Bell stepped between them.
“Mrs.
Price is safe,” he said.
“You don’t get to frighten her daughter again.”
Adelaide flicked the lighter.
A small flame rose.
Elaine held up her phone.
“Station security is recording this.
Burn those papers and you destroy evidence on camera.”
“Then tell Christian to trade.”
“Trade what?” Christian asked.
“The restaurant drives for the contents of this box.”
“You’re offering me papers you already tried to burn.”
“I’m offering you the only proof that Victor forged your father’s accounts.”
Christian’s eyes went to the bin.
“So Owen Price was innocent.”
Adelaide laughed once.
“Victor moved the money.
Owen found it.
Your father let Victor blame him because exposing the truth would have destroyed the family name.”
Marnie stared at Christian.
“Your father knew?”
Adelaide lifted a scorched letter.
“His signature is right here.”
Marnie’s voice cracked.
“My father spent twelve years believing no one would clear his name.”
Christian took a step toward her.
“Marnie—”
“Don’t.” Tears gathered in her eyes.
“You had the money to ask questions.
We had to sell our home.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That didn’t give us those years back.”
Adelaide lowered the flame toward the papers.
“The drive, Christian.
Now.”
He took the secure copy from his coat and held it up.
“If I hand this over, Victor walks away.”
“If you don’t, Marnie never proves what happened to her father.”
Marnie grabbed Christian’s wrist.
“Don’t trade it.”
“This letter could clear Owen.”
“And that recording could stop them doing this to someone else.”
Adelaide’s smile returned.
“How noble.
Shall I burn her father’s name clean off the page?”
A station officer appeared at the end of the corridor.
“Put down the lighter, ma’am.”
Adelaide threw the burning letter into the bin.
Mr.
Bell kicked the bin onto its side while Christian stamped out the flame.
Adelaide ran.
Two officers caught her before she reached the stairs.
“You still have nothing against Victor!” she shouted.
“He never signed a single order himself!”
Elaine knelt among the scattered pages.
“She may be right.
These transfers use shell-company codes, not Victor’s name.”
Marnie picked up a partly burned ledger.
“My father marked something in red.”
Christian leaned over her shoulder.
Beside every missing payment were the initials A.H.
“Those are Adelaide’s initials,” Elaine said.
“No,” Christian replied.
“My father’s name was Arthur Hale.”
A folded document slipped from the ledger.
It carried Arthur’s signature and a handwritten confession admitting that he had hidden Victor’s theft and framed Owen Price.
Marnie read the first line aloud, then covered her mouth.
Christian supported her elbow.
“My father did this to yours.”
She looked at him through tears.
“Say it properly.”
He did not look away.
“My father destroyed your father’s name, and my silence helped it remain buried.”
A phone began ringing inside the locker.
Marnie reached behind the ledgers and found an old voice recorder wired to a power bank.
The display showed one saved file.
She pressed play.
Arthur Hale’s voice filled the corridor.
May you like
“If Christian ever hears this, he must know the worst part.
Victor did not act alone.”
