There was a dead, suffocating silence in the lobby.
“Julian?” Vanessa whispered, her voice trembling. “He put Julian on the box? When?”
“Three days before he passed, ma'am.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. “I need a drill order,” Vanessa demanded, her voice dropping to a vicious hiss. “I will get a judge to declare that amendment fraudulent by this afternoon. You lock down that box. If Julian Hayes sets foot in this bank, I want the police called.”
She turned on her heel and stormed out of the bank, Vance scrambling to keep up.
I stood behind the pillar, my hands shaking. My father hadn’t just hidden something. He had deliberately set a trap. He knew Vanessa had the key, but he had legally locked her out of the room. And he knew I had the access, but I didn’t have the key.
The storm clears at the foundation.
I closed my eyes. The phrase finally clicked. It wasn't a metaphor. When I was ten years old, my father had built a hidden compartment under the original oak floorboards in the library of our house—the foundation of the original property. He used to hide birthday presents in it.
He didn't give Vanessa the real key. He let her find a decoy, or he let her steal the wrong one. The real key to whatever could destroy her was sitting beneath the floorboards in the house she currently occupied.
And I had to break in tonight to get it.
The security gate at the front of the Hayes estate was an intimidating wrought-iron structure, flanked by stone walls covered in ivy. Sitting in my car down the street at 1:00 AM, I watched the heavy rain wash over the security cameras mounted on the pillars.
I knew the gate code. My father had used the same six-digit sequence for twenty years—my mother’s birthday. I just prayed Vanessa hadn’t thought to change it in the frantic days since his death.
I left my car parked three blocks away in a dark residential subdivision. Pulling the hood of my dark rain jacket over my head, I walked through the freezing downpour toward the side entrance of the property. There was a smaller pedestrian gate hidden behind a row of tall hedges. I approached the glowing keypad, my fingers numb from the cold.
I punched in the six numbers.
A small green light flashed, and the heavy metal lock clicked open with a metallic thud.
I slipped inside, quietly pulling the gate shut behind me. The massive lawn was pitch black, the silhouette of the three-story mansion rising up against the stormy sky like a fortress. I moved quickly across the wet grass, sticking to the shadows of the large oak trees until I reached the back patio.
The library was located on the ground floor, facing the gardens. The French doors were locked, but I knew this house better than Vanessa ever would. The third window from the left had a faulty latch. My father always promised to fix it, but he never got around to it. I pressed my palms flat against the wet glass and pushed upward with steady, agonizingly slow pressure. The window groaned, then slid open just enough for me to slip through.
I dropped into the library, landing silently on the thick Persian rug. The room smelled of old paper and lemon polish. The only light came from the occasional flash of lightning outside.
I didn't dare turn on a flashlight. I navigated by memory, moving past the heavy leather armchairs toward the back corner of the room, near the large stone fireplace. The foundation. I dropped to my knees and ran my hands over the wide oak floorboards. I was looking for the one that felt slightly loose, the one where the nail head sat a fraction of an inch higher than the rest.
It took five agonizing minutes of feeling around in the dark before my fingers brushed against the raised metal.
I pulled my flathead screwdriver from my pocket, wedged it into the gap between the boards, and pried upward. The heavy piece of oak popped free with a quiet groan. I reached my hand into the dark, dusty cavity below.
My fingers wrapped around a small, velvet jewelry pouch.
I pulled it out, untied the drawstrings, and tipped it into my palm. A heavy, silver safety deposit box key fell out.
Relief washed over me, so intense it made my head spin. I had it. I had the real key.