Chapter 6 - Safe M-17
Mara drove her shoulder into the elevator's CLOSE button.
The doors tried again.
Adrian planted his shoe between them.
"Move," Mara said.
"Give me the key."
"Why?"
"Because whatever Nora told you, that room contains privileged corporate material."
Nora pushed forward. "You mean evidence."
Adrian's eyes cut to her. "I mean things Rachel had no legal right to remove."
Mara's pulse kicked.
"So you know what's inside."
"I know what the locker was used for."
"Then tell me."
"Get out of the elevator."
Mara reached into her clutch with her free hand.
Adrian saw the movement and stopped.
She pulled out her phone, opened the camera, and pointed it at him.
"Say it again."
His expression changed by a degree.
"What are you doing?"
"Recording the acting CEO blocking the Trust Protector from accessing Margaret Mercer's private records after a forged document surfaced."
Nora nodded. "Keep rolling."
The elevator chimed angrily.
Adrian removed his foot.
The doors closed.
Mara didn't breathe until the numbers began dropping.
Nora leaned against the wall.
Her hands shook now.
"He won't let this go."
"Neither will I."
"That's what Rachel said."
Mara looked at her.
"Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn my mother into a warning."
Nora looked down.
The elevator passed B1.
Then stopped.
The lights flickered.
Mara swore.
The floor indicator froze between levels.
Nora's head snapped up.
A speaker crackled overhead.
Adrian's voice.
"Mara, I'm asking you once. Come back upstairs."
She stared at the speaker.
"You shut down the elevator?"
"Security protocol."
"Unlock it."
"Come back upstairs."
Mara opened the emergency phone panel and yanked the handset free.
Dead.
Nora pointed at the ceiling hatch.
"Maintenance release."
Mara kicked off her heels.
"You're sixty-seven."
"And you're wasting time."
Nora climbed onto the handrail before Mara could stop her.
Mara boosted her.
The older woman shoved the hatch open.
A strip of fluorescent light cut into the elevator.
"There's a service ladder."
Mara climbed after her.
The shaft smelled like metal and hot dust.
Nora descended first to B2.
Mara followed, bare feet finding cold rungs.
Above them, the elevator speaker crackled again.
"Mara."
She kept climbing down.
A door opened somewhere above.
Male voices.
Security.
Nora reached the B2 landing and pulled the manual latch.
Nothing.
"Stuck."
Mara joined her on the narrow ledge.
Together they pulled.
The door moved three inches.
Footsteps clanged onto the ladder overhead.
Mara wedged her fingers into the gap and hauled.
Six inches.
A flashlight beam swept the shaft.
"Ms. Voss! Stop moving!"
Nora squeezed through first.
Mara shoved the door wider and rolled onto concrete as a security guard reached the landing above.
Nora slammed the manual door.
"Run."
They ran.
Sublevel two looked nothing like the polished floors upstairs.
Concrete walls. Exposed pipes. Locked steel doors labeled with old Mercer department codes.
Mara's feet slapped the floor.
M-11.
M-13.
M-15.
The corridor turned.
M-17.
Nora pulled the key from Mara's sleeve.
"You do it."
Mara took it.
Her hand trembled once.
The key slid into the old brass lock.
Turned.
The door opened.
A small records room waited beyond, lined with shelves and one steel safe.
No computer.
No windows.
Just paper.
Nora shut the door and locked it behind them.
Mara crossed to the safe.
The M-17 key fit a second lock built into its face.
"Convenient," she said.
"Margaret hated combinations."
The safe opened with a hard metal release.
Inside were three leather binders, a red document box, a cassette case, and six yellow envelopes tied with string.
Mara pulled out the first binder.
Margaret Mercer's handwriting filled the pages.
Dates.
Account numbers.
Names.
Arrows linking shell companies.
Mara recognized two vendors from Celeste's audit.
"She knew."
Nora nodded. "Some of it."
Mara grabbed the red box.
SUCCESSION CONTINGENCY.
She opened it.
Inside sat a draft amendment bearing Margaret's blue signature.
No Adrian Mercer.
No Celeste Arden.
No successor named at all.
Instead it created a temporary oversight committee controlled by the Trust Protector.
Mara's stomach tightened.
"This isn't the document Victor showed me."
"No."
A heavy bang struck the outer door.
Mara looked up.
Another bang.
Security had reached the corridor.
Nora pointed at the cassette case.
"Take that."
Mara opened it.
Empty.
A handwritten label had been taped inside.
IF ADRIAN TAKES CONTROL, PLAY THIS FIRST.
Mara stared.
"Where's the tape?"
Nora's face went blank.
"It was here."
"When?"
"When Margaret sealed the room."
The outer door shuddered again.
Mara dumped the yellow envelopes onto the floor.
Photographs spilled out.
Company events.
Private dinners.
Rachel standing beside Margaret at a conference table.
Young Adrian in the background.
Mara grabbed one photograph.
Adrian looked twenty-five.
His hair was longer.
His face thinner.
At his wrist, beneath a black suit sleeve, sat a pair of silver cuff links shaped like wolves.
Mara stopped.
Nora saw the picture.
"He wore those constantly back then."
"He had plain silver tonight."
"Tonight isn't back then."
Another crash hit the door.
The top hinge bent.
Mara shoved the photograph into her clutch.
She searched the safe again.
Behind the binders, her fingers hit a flat leather folder.
She pulled it out.
A passport fell open.
The photograph was Adrian.
Younger, but unmistakable.
The name below it was not.
JULIAN THOMAS KANE.
Mara looked at Nora.
"Who is Julian Kane?"
Nora's lips parted.
The lock snapped behind them.
The outer door flew inward.
Mara spun.
A figure stepped through the damaged doorway.
Not security.
Not Adrian.
Victor Hale stood there, tie loosened, breathing hard.
He looked at the passport in Mara's hand.
Every line in his face tightened.
May you like
"That's a question," he said, "you really shouldn't have asked."
