Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT ALLISON CALLED
Benjamin’s car was gone by the time Evelyn reached the chapel parking lot.
Detective Ortiz issued an alert, but Benjamin had left his phone and wallet inside his briefcase. He had also removed the license plates from his vehicle before driving away.
The action did not fit the man Evelyn had known for nine years.
Benjamin Cole had handled Allison’s charity contracts, protected the Hartwell Trust and challenged Derek during every financial dispute. He had appeared at birthdays, hospital fundraisers and family dinners.
Allison trusted him.
Or seemed to.
Evelyn returned to her apartment under police escort.
The city had become gray with approaching rain. By the time she reached the building, reporters had gathered near the entrance. The officers led her through a private garage and accompanied her upstairs.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
The music box remained inside a locked cabinet in Evelyn’s bedroom.
She placed it on the dining table.
The box was made of dark walnut with small silver stars embedded in the lid. Allison had decorated it herself when she was thirteen.
Evelyn turned the key.
A familiar melody played.
It was the lullaby she had sung to Allison during thunderstorms.
As the mechanism rotated, the base of the box vibrated slightly.
Evelyn examined the underside.
A narrow metal plate had been added beneath the original wood.
Detective Ortiz photographed it before allowing the technician to remove the screws.
Inside were two objects.
A memory card.
And a key wrapped in blue thread.
The memory card contained one video.
The recording began with Allison seated on the floor of her childhood bedroom. The room no longer existed, but Allison had recreated part of it. Blue fabric covered the wall behind her, and small silver lights looked like stars.
“Mom,” she said, “I hope you never have to watch this.”
Evelyn leaned closer to the screen.
“If you found the music box, then the funeral recording worked, Derek touched the bracelet and Benjamin disappeared.”
Ortiz looked at Evelyn.
Allison had predicted every event.
“In a few minutes, you will learn why I could not come home after the crash. First, I need you to remember the last time I called.”
Evelyn remembered.
It had been shortly after midnight, four days before the reported crash.
She had awakened to the sound of her phone vibrating against the bedside table.
Allison’s voice had been barely audible.
“Mom, are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Is anyone with you?”
“No. What happened?”
There had been a long pause.
Then Allison said, “Do you still have the music box?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t open it.”
Evelyn had sat up.
“Are you in trouble?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What kind of mistake?”
“I believed someone because I wanted peace more than I wanted the truth.”
“Derek?”
Allison did not answer.
“Come here,” Evelyn had said. “You can stay with me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re watching you.”
The line went silent for several seconds.
Evelyn thought the call had disconnected.
Then Allison whispered, “Do you remember what Dad used to say about storms?”
Evelyn’s husband had died when Allison was sixteen. During bad weather, he would tell their daughter that thunder was only the sky moving furniture.
“He said the noise could not hurt us,” Evelyn replied.
“That wasn’t the important part.”
“What was?”
“He said we should never hide in the first room we found.”
Evelyn had not understood.
Allison continued.
“If something happens to me, don’t trust the first truth they give you.”
Then the call ended.
Evelyn had tried to reach her daughter for the next four days.
Derek answered each time.
He claimed Allison was sleeping, working or refusing to speak to her mother after an argument.
Then the police called about the crash.
In the video, Allison looked exhausted.
“Benjamin knows about that phone call,” she said. “I told him because I believed he was helping me prepare evidence against Derek.”
She held up a photograph.
It showed Benjamin meeting Dr. Malcolm Reeve, the medical examiner who falsified the dental records.
The photograph was dated two months before the crash.
“Benjamin did not help Derek create the false identification. He helped create mine.”
Evelyn frowned.
Allison explained.
“Benjamin arranged for Rachel Sloane’s body to be placed in the car. He told me it was the only way to escape Derek long enough to expose his network. He promised Rachel had consented before her death.”
Detective Ortiz paused the recording.
“We need to verify that.”
The technician searched the files inside the memory card.
A consent form appeared.
Rachel Sloane had agreed to donate her body for a confidential operation intended to expose financial crimes connected to the private care system that had exploited her.
The form included a recorded statement.
Rachel knew her family had been told she wanted a private cremation. She understood that her body might be used to create a false identification.
It was unusual, ethically troubling and almost certainly illegal.
But Rachel had chosen it.
Ortiz resumed the video.
“I accepted Benjamin’s plan because I was desperate,” Allison said. “That was my second mistake.”
She held up another photograph.
Benjamin was standing beside a black sedan.
A symbol had been painted inside the open door.
A silver circle divided by a vertical line.
“Benjamin works for a group called Meridian. Derek launders money for them. Vanessa infiltrated Derek for them. The private care facilities, investment accounts and false identities all belong to the same network.”
Evelyn glanced at the key wrapped in blue thread.
Allison raised an identical key in the recording.
“This opens a deposit box at First National. Inside is the original Orpheus Ledger, containing every transaction Derek authorized.”
“Then why didn’t she give it to police?” Evelyn asked.
The answer came from the recording.
“I could not trust the police investigation. Someone informed Derek every time Claire Rowan and I discovered a new account.”
Detective Ortiz’s expression tightened.
Allison continued.
“Mom, Benjamin believes the ledger is inside the music box. When he discovers it isn’t, he will go to the bank.”
Ortiz immediately contacted her department.
Officers were sent to First National.
Evelyn looked at the key.
“Can we open the deposit box without him?”
“Possibly,” Ortiz said. “But the bank is closed.”
Allison’s recording showed a brief smile.
“The deposit box is not at the branch downtown. First National was the name of the abandoned train station where Dad proposed to you.”
Evelyn stared at the screen.
The old station had been closed for more than twenty years.
“Locker 214,” Allison said. “But do not go alone.”
The video flickered.
For a moment, static covered the image.
Then Allison leaned closer to the camera.
“If Benjamin reaches the ledger first, he will destroy the only proof that Derek is not the person at the top.”
The recording ended.
Ortiz ordered the officers downstairs to prepare the vehicles.
As Evelyn picked up the blue-threaded key, her apartment lights went out.
The emergency lamps in the hallway did not activate.
A shadow crossed the balcony window.
Detective Ortiz drew Evelyn away from the glass.
The technician checked his phone.
“No signal.”
Someone knocked on the apartment door.
Three slow strikes.
A pause.
Three more.
Ortiz approached silently and looked through the viewer.
Her expression changed.
“Who is it?” Evelyn whispered.
Ortiz unlocked the door but kept one hand near her holster.
Vanessa stood in the corridor.
She was still wearing the silver dress from the funeral.
One wrist was marked where the bracelet had been.
Bloodless and exhausted, she looked nothing like the confident woman who had whispered beside Allison’s casket.
“How did you get out?” Ortiz asked.
“I gave the police something they wanted more than me.”
“What?”
“The location of Dr. Reeve.”
Vanessa looked at the key in Evelyn’s hand.
“Benjamin is already at the station.”
Evelyn stepped into the corridor.
“Then we go now.”
Vanessa blocked her.
“No. That is exactly what Allison warned me you would do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The locker is a trap.”
“For Benjamin?”
May you like
Vanessa shook her head.
“For you.”
