Chapter 5 - The Last Kitchen
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing drizzle by the time Grace’s town car crossed the county line and pulled up behind an nondescript industrial warehouse tucked away in the shipping yards south of downtown Seattle.
According to the GPS ping from the IP tracker Grace had managed to embed in Melissa’s phone during the initial courthouse scuffle, the signal hadn't originated from a penthouse at all. It was bouncing straight off a private satellite uplink wired into the second-floor office of this rotting, salt-stained warehouse.
"This is completely insane," Grace hissed, keeping the engine idling while she stared out the windshield at the darkened building. "We call the FBI, Evelyn. We let the marshals handle it. If that voice on the phone was connected to the people Victor owes money to, walking into that building unbacked is a death sentence."
"If we wait for the federal marshals to untangle the corporate jurisdiction paperwork Victor just forged, those five million dollars will be laundered through three different offshore accounts before morning," I said, reaching for the door handle. "And I will be the one sitting in a federal penitentiary for crimes my husband and his girlfriend committed."
Grace reached across the console, her fingers catching my wrist with surprising strength. "Evelyn, listen to me. You’ve spent twenty years carrying his dead weight. Are you really going to risk your life now to chase a ghost?"
I looked down at my left arm, letting my fingers brush over the old, pale burn scar stretching from my wrist up past my elbow—the permanent signature Victor had left on my body when he cut corners to save a dollar.
"I'm not chasing a ghost, Grace," I said quietly, pushing the door open and letting the cold Seattle wind rush into the car. "I'm collecting my back pay."
I stepped out onto the wet asphalt, the damp chill biting instantly through my coat.
The warehouse door wasn't locked. It gave way with a heavy, rusted groan as I leaned my weight against it, stepping into a cavernous, dimly lit staging room filled with stacked wooden pallets and empty shipping crates. The air smelled of salt water, diesel exhaust, and cheap tobacco.
Up above, a single strip of yellow light leaked out from beneath a metal staircase leading to the second-floor office.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
My boots echoed sharply against the concrete floor as I climbed the steps, my hand resting firmly in my coat pocket where I gripped the heavy brass handle of an old-fashioned meat cleaver I had pulled from Grace’s emergency road kit.
I reached the top landing.
The heavy oak door to the office was cracked open by an inch. Inside, a low, familiar voice was speaking in hurried, agitated tones.
"...I don't care what the feds are doing! Just wire the second tranche to the Cayman account before the primary audit flags the routing number!"
It was Melissa.
She wasn't crying. She wasn't panicked. She sounded like a seasoned corporate executive wrapping up a successful fiscal quarter.
I pushed the door open with the palm of my hand.
It swung inward with a loud bang, slamming against the drywall behind it.
Melissa froze. She was standing behind a mahogany desk littered with open laptop screens, a satellite phone pressed to her ear, and three thick stacks of banded hundred-dollar bills sitting right beside an open leather duffel bag.
She slowly lowered the phone, her eyes widening in absolute shock as she stared at me standing in the doorway.
"Evelyn?" she whispered, color instantly draining from her face. "How... how did you find this place?"
I didn't answer right away. I stepped into the office, my boots leaving wet footprints across the pristine white carpet, and looked around the room. Pinned to the corkboard behind the desk were wire transfer schematics, corporate identity-theft forms, and a large, color-printed organizational chart of Hale’s Hearth—with my name circled in red ink at the very bottom, labeled simply as Target / Fall Guy.
Melissa slowly backed away from the desk, her hands rising defensively. "Look, Evelyn... you don't understand. Victor told me you were in on it. He said you wanted out of the marriage and agreed to take the fall for the corporate restructuring in exchange for a clean break—"
"Stop talking, Melissa," I interrupted, my voice terrifyingly calm as I closed the distance between us.
Melissa’s eyes darted toward the side door leading down to the loading dock. "We can make a deal! There's enough cash in that bag for both of us—"
Before she could finish the sentence, a heavy, metallic click echoed from the dark hallway behind her.
Another door swung open.
A tall man in a dark trench coat stepped out from the shadows of the adjoining storage room, holding a heavy, suppressed pistol pointed straight at my chest.
"Well, well, well," the man said, a cold, predatory smile spreading across his face as he stepped into the light. "The loyal little pack mule decided to show up after all."
I stopped dead in my tracks, my hand tightening inside my coat pocket around the heavy steel handle of the cleaver.
May you like
The man raised the barrel of the gun slightly, locking his cold eyes onto mine. "Put the bag down, Melissa," he muttered without looking away from me. "And let’s have a little family reunion."
Before the man could pull the trigger, the heavy metal door at the bottom of the warehouse stairs flew open with a deafening crash, and the sound of heavy boots and sirens flooded the building from below.
