Chapter 6 - LOCKER 214
At eleven forty-five that night, Union Station looked almost peaceful.
It wasn’t.
Police officers in plain clothes watched entrances.
Miriam coordinated with Detective Bell.
Oliver monitored security feeds from a van.
Sophie remained with my aunt in case my mother appeared somewhere else.
Nate refused to stay behind.
Detective Bell objected.
“You’re a target.”
“So is Elena.”
“You’re also a billionaire whose kidnapping would become an international incident.”
“Then let’s avoid getting kidnapped.”
Bell stared at him.
“You always this difficult?”
Nate glanced at me.
“Apparently I’m improving.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Then midnight arrived.
I walked toward Locker 214 carrying a decoy flash drive.
No uniform this time.
Jeans.
Jacket.
Shoes I could run in.
My hands shook.
Nate waited thirty yards away.
Bell’s officers blended into the station.
Locker 214 opened with Mateo’s key.
Inside was a backpack.
No mother.
No kidnappers.
I pulled out the bag.
My phone buzzed.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
PLATFORM 6.
ALONE.
I showed Bell’s hidden camera the message.
Then I walked.
Platform 6 was nearly empty.
A train idled on the opposite track.
At the far end stood a man in a dark jacket.
Beside him was my mother.
Her wrists were zip-tied.
A bruise marked her cheek.
My chest burned.
“Mamá.”
“Elena, no!”
The man pushed her forward.
“Drive.”
I held it up.
“Let her go.”
“You first.”
“No.”
He laughed.
“You think you’re negotiating?”
“I think if you kill either of us, the police will hunt you forever.”
His eyes changed slightly.
Good.
He wasn’t expecting confidence.
I continued.
“And Charles Sterling will pretend he never met you.”
That struck harder.
“Shut up.”
“Vanessa already got arrested. Charles will sacrifice you next.”
“Drive.”
“You killed my brother for him, didn’t you?”
My mother gasped.
The man’s expression gave him away.
Only for a second.
But enough.
“You ran the red light.”
He moved toward me.
Behind him, my mother suddenly dropped.
Not fell.
Dropped.
Nate had told her during the phone call, if she ever got a chance, get low.
A gunshot cracked across the platform.
I screamed.
The bullet struck a metal post.
Police rushed in.
The man grabbed for my mother.
She kicked him in the knee.
I had never been prouder of her.
He stumbled.
Detective Bell tackled him.
Two officers pulled my mother away.
I ran to her.
“Mamá!”
She wrapped her arms around me.
For several seconds, the world disappeared.
She was alive.
That was enough.
Then another shot echoed.
Everyone turned.
The station went chaotic.
The detained man hadn’t fired.
A second shooter was somewhere above us.
Glass shattered near Nate.
His security officer shoved his wheelchair behind a concrete column.
“NATE!”
I ran before anyone could stop me.
Another bullet struck the platform.
Nate grabbed my wrist and pulled me down beside him.
“What part of ‘take cover’ confused you?”
“You’re welcome!”
“For what?”
“For providing emotional support!”
He looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
Then, unbelievably, he laughed.
Police found the second shooter ten minutes later.
He surrendered after being cornered on an upper walkway.
Both men were connected to Sterling Strategic Holdings through private security subcontractors.
The first man’s name was Wesley Kane.
He had been driving the truck that killed Mateo.
Not an accident.
Bell told me hours later.
Kane confessed after learning Charles Sterling’s attorneys denied ever employing him.
He gave police everything.
The payment.
The instructions.
The staged route.
Mateo had been followed for two weeks.
Kane had been told to retrieve whatever evidence Mateo carried and make the death look accidental.
But Mateo wasn’t carrying the drive.
He’d already hidden it.
My brother had known.
Somehow, he had known.
Police recovered my mother.
They recovered Kane’s communications.
And from Locker 214, they recovered Mateo’s final insurance policy.
The backpack contained a second encrypted drive.
A paper file.
Photographs.
Bank records.
And a small digital recorder.
On the recorder was Mateo interviewing a nervous man named Lucas Brandt.
The mechanic.
Lucas admitted someone paid him fifty thousand dollars to replace the helicopter control bolts.
He believed they only wanted to create a mechanical fault that would force an emergency landing.
He claimed he never expected the aircraft to crash.
“Who paid you?” Mateo asked.
There was a long pause.
Then Lucas answered.
“Charles Sterling’s operations chief.”
“Did Charles know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Vanessa?”
Another silence.
Then:
“She was there.”
Nate turned pale.
Mateo pressed.
“Where?”
“At the hangar.”
“When?”
“The night before the crash.”
The recording stopped.
Nate stared at the device.
Vanessa had watched someone sabotage his helicopter.
Then visited him in the hospital.
Held his hand.
Helped him learn to use a wheelchair.
Presented herself as his greatest supporter.
Six months later, when he began questioning her again, she pushed him down a staircase.
I wondered what kind of person could live beside someone they had nearly killed and still sleep peacefully.
Nate must have wondered too.
He looked exhausted.
Not physically.
Deeper.
I sat beside him in the police interview room.
“You don’t have to listen to the rest tonight.”
“Yes, I do.”
“You’ve had enough.”
“You sound like Sophie.”
“That should worry you.”
A faint smile.
Then silence.
Finally, he asked, “Did Mateo write that note before he died?”
“Yes.”
“Trust the man in the chair.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Nate stared at the floor.
“Maybe he believed you’d do the right thing.”
“That would make one of us.”
I turned toward him.
“You stopped Vanessa tonight.”
“Police stopped her people.”
“You came.”
He looked at me.
“So did you.”
“My mother was there.”
“And that automatically means you stop being afraid?”
I didn’t answer.
He continued.
“Courage isn’t something rich people own, Elena.”
“I never said it was.”
“You keep acting like I’m the powerful one.”
“You are a billionaire.”
“And you grabbed Vanessa Sterling’s wrist in front of three hundred people while wearing an apron.”
That shut me up.
Nate smiled.
“There. I finally won an argument.”
“You’re celebrating early.”
His smile widened.
For the first time, I saw the man he must have been before Vanessa.
Funny.
Sharp.
Alive.
Then Detective Bell entered.
The smile disappeared.
“We have a problem.”
He placed a document on the table.
“Vanessa made bail.”
“What?” I asked.
“Her attorneys challenged several initial charges. She was released under strict conditions.”
Nate looked furious.
“Where is she?”
Bell hesitated.
“That’s the problem.”
“She removed her monitoring device twenty-two minutes ago.”
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Bell continued.
“And Charles Sterling is gone too.”
