Chapter 6 - Unlocking the Safe
The front lawn of the Cole residence was surrounded by yellow crime scene tape when our convoy pulled back onto Maple Street.
A dozen neighbors stood across the street, watching in hushed silence. There were no sneers now. No whispered insults. Brenda Higgins was standing by her mailbox, her hands clasped tightly against her chest, looking like she wanted to apologize but lacked the courage to cross the street.
I walked past the tape without a word, flanked by Whitmore, Miller, and four federal evidence technicians carrying metal toolboxes and blue evidence bins.
The front door had been left unlocked by the local police. Stepping inside felt like walking into a mausoleum. Everything smelled the same—lavender furniture polish, expensive potpourri, and Eleanor's signature perfume. The crystal chandelier in the foyer hung like an ostentatious monument to stolen money.
"Where do we start?" Agent Hayes asked.
"The basement," I replied. "My father had a wine cellar installed six years ago. But behind the custom mahogany wine racks, there’s an old coal chute that was sealed off during the renovation."
We descended the carpeted stairs into the basement. The space was finished with plush gray carpeting, leather recliner chairs, and a sixty-inch television. At the far end stood the wine cellar, protected by a heavy iron-and-glass door.
Miller brought up a heavy pry bar, but I held up a hand.
"The key is in Eleanor's jewelry box upstairs," I said. "A little silver skeleton key marked '1984'."
Hayes dispatched an agent upstairs, and within three minutes, the key was in my hand. I inserted it into the small brass lock hidden beneath the wine cellar's temperature control panel. It turned with a smooth, oiled click.
The iron door swung open.
Inside, rows of expensive cabernets and pinots lined the walls. I walked past bottles worth five hundred dollars each, straight toward the back corner where the mahogany rack met the cold foundation wall. I pulled out three specific bottles of vintage merlot, reaching my arm deep into the recess until my fingers brushed against a recessed steel latch.
I pulled.
With a grinding moan, a six-foot section of the wine rack swung outward on heavy industrial casters.
Behind it was a steel gun safe bolted directly into the concrete floor.
"Well, I'll be damned," Whitmore whispered, stepping up behind me. "The local building department had no record of a sub-structure permit here."
"Because Robert paid the city inspector five grand in cash to look the other way," I said. "He changed the combination twice a year. Always used dates he thought were significant."
"Do you know it?" Hayes asked, pulling on a pair of purple nitrile gloves.
"The day he signed his first military subcontract," I said, reaching for the electronic keypad. "August 14th, 2012. Zero-eight-one-four-one-two."
The safe beeped twice. A green light flashed.
A heavy electronic bolt slid back.
Miller gripped the wheel handle and spun it counter-clockwise. When the massive steel door opened, the evidence technicians let out a collective whistle.
Inside were four thick, leather-bound accounting ledgers, six encrypted hard drives, and neat stacks of bundled hundred-dollar bills totaling at least half a million dollars. But sitting right on top of the first ledger was something that made my heart stop.
It was an old, battered manila folder with my name written in Eleanor's looping cursive: *REBECCA — DISCIPLINE & REMOVAL.*
I picked up the folder. My hands were perfectly still, but a cold fire was burning in my chest.
I opened it.
Inside were four years of intercepted mail. Letters I had written to my younger brother before he passed away. Letters from the Army personnel office trying to confirm family dependency status. And beneath them all was a signed, fraudulent power of attorney document that Robert and Eleanor had fabricated—authorizing Bradley Vance to liquidate my childhood trust fund the very week after I disappeared.
"They didn't just frame you," Miller muttered, reading over my shoulder with pure fury in his voice. "They systematically erased you so they could steal your grandfather's inheritance."
"They tried," I said, handing the entire folder to Agent Hayes. "Log it as federal evidence."
Then, from the upstairs foyer, a loud bang echoed down the stairs.
"Police!" a voice shouted. "Hold your fire! We have an incoming transfer!"
May you like
Carter appeared at the top of the basement stairs, looking grim. "Rebecca. Colonel. You need to come upstairs. Eleanor just posted bond through an emergency bondsman in Toledo. She's outside. And she brought Bradley's mother."
***
