Chapter 14 - The Locked Legacy
The drive back from Red Rock Penitentiary was suffocatingly quiet. The wipers slashed across the windshield, beating back a sudden, torrential downpour that turned the highway into a gray ribbon of rushing water.
Victoria drove with both hands clamped tightly on the steering wheel, her knuckles white.
"Did our father ever mention sovereign access keys to you, Claire?" she asked, her voice tight with suppressed anger. "You lived with him during his last two years while I was clerking in Washington. Did he ever speak about his private defense consultancies?"
I stared out at the rain-streaked window, my mind racing through memories of my father’s final months. Dad had been a pioneer in distributed computing, a gentle man who spent his evenings listening to classical records in his wood-paneled study. But during his final year, after the initial strokes began to cloud his speech, he had become increasingly secretive.
"He gave me a necklace," I said slowly, the memory surfacing through the haze of grief. "Three weeks before he died. It was an antique silver locket containing a photograph of my mother. He told me never to take it off, and never to let anyone appraise it."
Victoria’s head snapped toward me for a fraction of a second before returning her gaze to the road. "Where is it now?"
"It was in my personal jewelry safe in the master suite," I said, a wave of cold dread washing over me. "The night Richard attacked me... the night he tore my wedding dress... he ripped the chain from my throat. He threw it across the marble foyer."
"When the police processed the scene," Victoria said, her breathing shallow, "did the inventory report list the locket?"
I pulled up the digitized police evidence log on my phone with shaking fingers. I scrolled through the photographed items from that harrowing night: the torn silk dress, the broken crystal vase, the bloody handprints on the banister.
*Item 44: One silver chain, broken clasp.*
*Item 45: One silver locket, empty.*
"It was empty," I read aloud. "The locket was cataloged, but the report says it was empty."
"Then Richard took whatever was inside before the sirens arrived," Victoria deduced. "Or Eleanor did."
"Eleanor," I muttered.
Eleanor Bennett was currently out on an astronomical ten-million-dollar bail, confined to her sister's penthouse in upstate New York with an ankle monitor, awaiting trial on twenty-two counts of grand larceny, conspiracy, and witness intimidation. If Richard had handed the contents of that locket to anyone while the police were breaching the gates, it was his mother.
Victoria's phone chimed on the dashboard console. It was a secure call from our private security chief, Frank.
"Victoria, Claire, you need to turn around right now," Frank’s voice sounded muffled over the roar of helicopter blades.
May you like
"Frank, what's happening?" Victoria demanded, hitting the speakerphone.
"A tactical squad claiming to be from the Department of Homeland Security just landed on the foundation's front lawn with a federal national security warrant," Frank yelled over the deafening noise. "They’re evacuating the residents. They aren't looking for financial records, Victoria. They’re tearing apart the foundation's private vaults!"
