Chapter 8 - Warehouse Nine

Warehouse Nine had no windows.

The rebuilt structure sat at the far edge of Port Meridian behind fences that should have kept everyone out and apparently had kept nobody out.

Elena arrived in Mateo's sedan.

Alone, as requested.

At least that was what the cameras saw.

Luca and Camille entered through a storm drain mapped in Arturo's old property records. Rafael's men watched the river approach from two boats. Dominic remained under guard, furious at being excluded.

Elena carried both keys.

One was real.

One was a copy.

She entered the warehouse.

Thomas Reed stood under a hanging work light.

Vanessa sat ten feet behind him, wrists tied.

“Elena.”

“Thomas.”

“You brought the keys?”

“Yes.”

“No Luca?”

“No.”

Thomas smiled.

“I always thought you were smarter than he deserved.”

Vanessa said, “Don't give him anything.”

Thomas struck her across the mouth.

Elena's body tensed.

“Do that again and you get nothing.”

Thomas looked at her.

Then laughed.

“You really are Arturo's granddaughter.”

“What happened to my grandfather?”

“He died an old man.”

“That wasn't my question.”

Thomas's smile faded.

Elena took one step closer.

“You were at Warehouse Nine the night Carlo died.”

Vanessa stared at her father.

Thomas did not.

“So you found the photographs.”

“Vanessa found them.”

“Evelyn should have destroyed those.”

Vanessa whispered, “Mom knew.”

Thomas looked at her.

“Your mother knew many things too late.”

The words broke something in Vanessa's face.

“You killed her.”

“No.”

“You worked for the people who did.”

Thomas's jaw tightened.

“I worked to keep you alive.”

Elena almost laughed.

“Everyone keeps using that sentence.”

Thomas pointed the gun at her.

“This is not your marriage.”

“No. In my marriage, the gun was metaphorical.”

Vanessa made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh.

Thomas snapped, “Enough.”

He held out his free hand.

“Keys.”

Elena removed them from her pocket.

“First tell me what is under the warehouse.”

“The harbor ledger.”

“Why do you need me?”

“Arturo changed the lock after Carlo died. One key opens the outer gate. The second requires a living Velez beneficiary to engage the mechanism.”

Elena stared.

“He built a biometric lock thirty years ago?”

“Not biometric. Legal.”

Thomas pointed toward a steel door in the floor.

“Your signature is registered through the trust custodian. The chamber cannot be lawfully opened without you, and if we break it, the flood valves destroy everything.”

“Clever.”

“Annoying.”

“Who is the Ferryman?”

Thomas smiled.

“You still think it's one man.”

Elena felt a chill.

“What is it?”

“A seat.”

Vanessa stopped moving.

Thomas continued.

“Carlo held it briefly. Then he wanted out. Bellini held it after him. After Bellini died, another took it. The network survives because the Ferryman changes.”

“Who holds it now?”

Thomas's eyes shifted.

A mistake.

Toward the catwalk.

Elena looked up.

A man stepped from the shadows.

Senator Graham Hale.

Camille's voice came through the hidden earpiece beneath Elena's hair.

Stay calm.

Hale descended the stairs.

He was smiling.

“Mrs. Moretti.”

“Elena.”

“Of course.”

She looked at Thomas.

“You take orders from him?”

Thomas said nothing.

Hale answered.

“Thomas takes orders from necessity.”

Vanessa whispered, “You financed Crescent.”

Hale looked at her.

“Your mother asked too many questions. You inherited the habit.”

“You had her killed.”

“No. Silvio Bellini did.”

“And Carlo?”

“Bellini again.”

Elena watched him carefully.

“You're blaming a dead man.”

“I prefer accurate history.”

“Then why hide?”

“Because accuracy is rarely useful in politics.”

Camille's voice again.

Keep him talking.

Elena raised the keys.

“You want the ledger?”

Hale nodded.

“I want stability.”

“People keep dying around your definition of stability.”

“So they do around Luca's.”

That hurt because it was true.

A sound echoed beneath the floor.

Metal.

Thomas looked down.

“What was that?”

Hale turned.

The lights went out.

Luca moved first.

Glass broke somewhere above.

Vanessa screamed.

Gunfire cracked.

Elena dropped behind a concrete barrier.

Camille's team breached from the east.

Rafael's men cut power from the river.

In the dark, Thomas grabbed Elena's wrist.

“The keys.”

She drove her knee into him.

He cursed.

A gun fired.

Thomas fell.

Emergency lights flickered red.

Vanessa was on the floor, crawling toward him.

“Dad!”

Blood spread beneath Thomas's shoulder.

Hale had vanished.

Luca reached Elena.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Keys?”

She held them up.

“One real.”

He almost smiled.

Camille shouted from the steel door.

“Hale went below!”

Elena ran toward it.

The outer gate stood open.

Someone had already used another key.

Luca looked at Carlo's key in Elena's hand.

“If ours is here—”

“Then there is a third.”

Thomas laughed weakly from the floor.

Everyone turned.

He coughed blood.

“Carlo made copies.”

Vanessa pressed her hands to his wound.

“Stop talking.”

Thomas looked at Elena.

“Hale doesn't want the ledger.”

“What does he want?”

Thomas's face twisted.

“The page with his father's name.”

Then alarms began to scream.

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Water thundered beneath the floor.

The tide room was flooding.