Chapter 6 - LOCKER 317
Robert wanted to go alone.
Liam refused.
Olivia insisted on coming too.
Sarah finally looked at all three of them and said, “Secrets created this disaster. We are not solving it with more secrets.”
So they went together.
Central Station had changed since Evelyn’s death, but the old rental lockers remained beneath the eastern staircase.
Locker 317 required both a key and a numeric code.
The envelope contained neither.
Liam examined the silver necklace he had worn since childhood.
The pendant opened.
Inside, engraved so faintly no one had noticed before, were four numbers.
The locker clicked open.
Inside sat a leather folder, a cassette tape, photographs and an unopened bank statement.
Robert lifted the first photograph.
It showed Evelyn Hale standing beside Lydia Moore, Liam’s biological mother.
Lydia was visibly pregnant.
On the back Evelyn had written:
Six weeks before Robert’s accident.
Another photograph showed Robert’s father, Howard Hale, meeting a hospital administrator.
The date was three days after Liam’s birth.
Robert went pale.
Liam opened the folder.
There was a copy of his original birth registration.
Father: Robert James Hale.
Mother: Lydia Anne Moore.
Child: Liam Robert Hale.
Then Olivia found the bank statement.
A payment of $250,000 had been transferred from Hale Holdings to a private medical foundation two days after Liam was born.
Liam stared at Robert.
“That’s not hush money for a poor girl.”
Robert shook his head.
“No.”
Sarah looked at the documents.
“That’s institutional.”
At the bottom of the folder was one final item.
A handwritten note from Evelyn.
May you like
Howard did not erase Liam only because he hated Lydia.
He erased him because Liam inherited something the moment he was born.
