Chapter 9 - The Lockbox Secret
The mention of my uncle—a man whose very name was strictly forbidden in our household growing up—sent a violent jolt through my nervous system. I had only ever seen one faded photograph of Uncle Robert tucked away in the back of my grandmother’s old photo album before it mysteriously disappeared when I was ten years old. Whenever anyone asked what happened to him, my parents would shut down the conversation with cold, rehearsed platitudes about a tragic accident in the family business.
"What are you talking about, Marlene?" I demanded, gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles turned white. "What does Uncle Robert have to do with any of this?"
"I don't know!" Marlene wailed, the sound of police dispatch radios crackling loudly on her end of the line. "Your father was raving before the marshals put the cuffs on him. He kept saying that if he was going down, he wasn't going alone, and that the truth about Robert’s death wasn't an accident at all! He said the key is in the floorboards of the old boathouse at the lake property. Emily, please—you have to listen to me—"
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed through the speaker, followed by a sharp, terrified shriek from Marlene.
"Marlene? Marlene, are you there?!" I shouted into the phone.
A heavy, static-filled scuffle came across the line, followed by the sound of someone picking up the dropped phone. But it wasn't Marlene’s voice that answered.
"She's busy right now, little sister," a cold, smooth voice hissed through the speaker.
My blood ran ice-cold. It was Lucas.
"Lucas? What did you do?" I yelled, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"I didn't do anything yet," Lucas laughed, a manic, desperate sound. "Dad might be stupid enough to let his empire collapse over a petty grudge, but I found the secondary ledger. I know about the boathouse. And more importantly, I know what your precious billionaire husband is really hiding about why my father’s company was targeted in the first place."
Before I could reply, the line went dead with a sharp click.
I stood frozen in the middle of the grand foyer, the phone still pressed to my ear, the dial tone buzzing monotonously in the empty air.
Alexander was standing beside me instantly, his dark eyes sharp and assessing. He had heard enough of my end of the conversation to put the pieces together.
"Who was that?" Alexander asked, his voice low and dangerous.
"It was Lucas," I breathed, my hands trembling as I lowered the phone. "He has Marlene. And he knows about the safety deposit box key at the old family boathouse by Buckeye Lake. He said... he said Dad left something about Uncle Robert's death. And he said he knows what you're hiding."
Alexander’s expression didn't panic, but a dark, impenetrable shadow fell across his features. The easy, confident billionaire vanished, replaced by the hardened man who had spent a decade fighting his way out from under the wreckage of the Miller family's corporate theft.
"Buckeye Lake," Alexander muttered, his mind working at lightning speed. "That boathouse was supposed to be demolished five years ago."
"My father must have kept it as an insurance policy," I said, panic rising in my chest. "Alexander, Lucas is desperate. If he goes to that boathouse and finds whatever is buried there, he'll try to use it to destroy you. We have to stop him."
Alexander walked over to the entryway table, pulled his car keys from his pocket, and grabbed his heavy wool overcoat. He looked at me with an intensity that brooked no argument.
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"We're going," Alexander said, his voice hard as steel. "Get your coat. Because whatever is in that boathouse isn't just about your father's business fraud. It's the secret that started this entire war."
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