"There are students' projects in there!" I yelled, thinking of Leo's fragile glass diorama. "There is history in there!"
"It's just garbage," Richard said coldly. He gestured to Trent and Chase. "Put her in the archives. Lock the door."
"You can't do this!" I struggled fiercely as the two boys dragged me out of the server room and down the dark corridor toward the heavy metal door of the basement archives.
"Enjoy the noise, Evelyn," Richard called out from down the hall.
Trent shoved me hard into the dark, dusty archive room. I stumbled forward, crashing into a stack of cardboard boxes, skinning my palms on the rough concrete floor.
The heavy metal door slammed shut behind me. The deadbolt slid into place with a terrifying, definitive clack.
I was plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
I scrambled to my feet, my hands frantically searching my apron pocket. I pulled out the encrypted phone. The screen cast a harsh white glow over the dusty boxes of old school records.
I checked the signal.
NO SERVICE.
The basement was a dead zone. The thick concrete walls and the server room's electromagnetic interference were jamming the satellite connection.
A low, deep vibration began to hum through the concrete floor beneath my feet. It wasn't the servers. It was the heavy, rhythmic thrum of industrial diesel engines.
The wrecking balls had arrived.
I was trapped in the dark, clutching the digital proof of Marcus Sterling’s crimes, listening to the heavy machinery prepare to tear my husband's legacy to the ground.
CHAPTER 4
The basement archives smelled of decaying paper and damp concrete. I stood perfectly still in the darkness, the glowing screen of my encrypted phone casting long, jagged shadows against the towering stacks of cardboard boxes.
Above me, the floorboards groaned. The deep, guttural vibration of the heavy machinery outside the walls was growing louder, sending a sickening tremor up through the soles of my shoes. They were positioning the excavators.
Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to paralyze me. I was seventy-four years old. I was locked behind a solid steel door in a subterranean room with no cellular signal. If I didn't get out, Marcus Sterling would destroy the scholarship wing, erase the physical history of the endowment, and legally bury the theft under the rubble of an "emergency demolition."
I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe.
Think, Evelyn. You built this building.
When Thomas and I designed the administrative wing, we insisted on redundant HVAC pathways because of the archaic boiler system. I raised my phone, using the flashlight feature to sweep the dusty ceiling.
There. In the far corner, half-obscured by a stack of old financial ledgers, was a square metal grate covering a ventilation return shaft. It was small, but it led straight up to the ground-floor utility closet.
I moved quickly, ignoring the throbbing ache in my bruised knees. I dragged two heavy boxes of paper over to the corner, stacking them precariously. I climbed up, my muscles screaming in protest. I reached the grate and used the heavy titanium edge of my phone to pry the rusted latches loose. With a harsh scrape, the grate popped free, showering my face in decades of gray dust.
I hauled myself up into the narrow metal shaft. The physical toll was agonizing. My shoulders scraped against the sharp metal edges, and the air was suffocatingly thin. I crawled upward, inch by inch, the sound of the diesel engines outside driving me forward.
Ten minutes later, I pushed open the upper grate and tumbled out onto the linoleum floor of the ground-level utility closet. I lay there for a moment, gasping for air, covered head to toe in thick gray grime, my apron torn, my hair wild.
I pulled out my phone.
SIGNAL ACQUIRED.