Chapter 4 - The Ledger in the Safe
I pressed myself flat against the brickwork, the ancient mortar scraping through my coat wool against my shoulder blade.
The man didn't look left or right. He pulled the heavy service door shut with a muffled metallic thud, spun the combination dial on a heavy brass padlock hanging from the latch, and walked briskly toward the mouth of the alley without ever turning his head.
I waited until his footsteps faded into the rhythmic rumble of a distant CTA train before I exhaled.
My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I looked at the padlock. It was an old-school combination lock, brass-bodied, scratched and worn around the dial. People who used high-tech security systems didn't use brass padlocks from the 1980s. People who wanted things to look abandoned while keeping out the casual wanderer did.
I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly, and touched the dial.
It didn't move. Locked tight.
I took a step back, my eyes tracking up the brick facade to the second-floor windows. The iron fire escape zig-zagged down the side of the building, its lower ladder hoisted six feet off the ground—just out of reach for anyone without a milk crate or a boost.
I looked around the alley. Empty. Just a row of plastic garbage bins frozen solid against the opposite wall.
I dragged the lightest one over, hauled myself up onto the rim, and reached for the lowest rung of the ladder. My fingers caught the cold iron. With a sharp wrench, I pulled downward, swinging my weight onto the steel until the rusty hinges groaned and the ladder slid down with a hollow, ringing crash that sounded like a church bell in the dead alley.
I stopped, listening.
No shouts. No lights turning on in the auto-body shop. Just the wind whistling through the iron rungs.
I climbed fast, my boots clanging softly against the open metal mesh until I reached the second-floor landing.
The window beside the fire escape wasn't locked. It was an old double-hung sash with a cracked pane held together by layers of yellowed packing tape. I tapped the center of the glass with the heel of my palm.
Crack.
The tape gave way with a sticky resistance. I reached inside, slid the brass latch, and pushed the window up.
The room inside smelled of dust, old paper, and machine oil.
I swung my legs over the sill and dropped quietly onto a hardwood floor that groaned under my weight.
I was standing in what looked like an old drafting office. Desks were piled high with blue architectural prints, empty coffee cups encrusted with green mold, and stacks of shipping manifests yellowed at the edges.
I flicked on the flashlight app on my phone, keeping the beam low, pointed straight at the floor.
My father’s handwriting was everywhere.
Not on scraps of paper, but scrawled in the margins of the shipping ledgers spread across the central wooden table. I stepped closer, the beam of my phone cutting through the dancing dust motes.
Consignment 44-B: Books (Rare/Antique). Destination: Private Warehouse, South Chicago. Received by: M.C.
M.C.
Michael Carter.
My father hadn't just sold books to survive. He had been logging them. Thousands of dollars worth of leather-bound volumes, rare manuscripts, and first editions moving through the docks under shipping codes that didn't appear in any public customs registry.
I flipped the page.
And then I saw my own name.
Trust account established for S. Carter. Balance: $150,000. Release condition: Upon verification of signature or completion of term.
I stopped breathing.
One hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
My father had lived in a house with a leaky roof for ten years. He wore sweaters with holes in the elbows. He ate oatmeal for breakfast six days a week because milk had gone up twenty cents.
Where did one hundred and fifty thousand dollars come from?
A soft click sounded behind me.
Not the window.
The heavy oak door at the far end of the office.
"Your father was a very careful man, Miss Carter," a voice said from the darkness near the doorway.
May you like
I spun around, dropping my phone. The beam hit the floorboards, illuminating the polished black shoes of a man standing right where the light didn't reach.
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