Chapter 7 - The Forgotten Safe
The guards dragged Naomi toward the service elevator at the end of the sixth floor. They had handcuffs out, ready to restrain her until the local precinct units arrived.
"Miss Arden wants her held in the basement security cell until the detectives arrive," the taller guard muttered.
"Got it," the second guard said, punching the call button.
Naomi had less than ten seconds. She let her body go dead-weight, slumping suddenly toward the linoleum. As both guards leaned down to wrench her upward by her collar, Naomi slammed her forehead upward into the bridge of the taller guard’s nose.
The crunch of cartilage echoed in the alcove. The guard roared in pain, clutching his face as blood sprayed through his fingers. The second guard lunged, but Naomi swung Marcus’s heavy leather handbag into his throat, staggering him, then shoved him hard into the open shaft of the linen chute across the hall.
She didn't stop to breathe. She bolted down the fire exit stairs, five flights at a time, her sneakers squealing against the raw concrete.
She hit the ground level, burst through the emergency fire exit into the alley, and dissolved into the torrential downpour.
Twenty minutes later, Naomi pulled her car up to the darkened exterior of Vale Manor. The main gates were locked, but she had used the tradesman’s overgrown service path behind the greenhouses for ten years. She cut her lights and coasted down the gravel drive under the cover of the wind and rain.
Inside the dark mansion, the silence was suffocating. Every ticking clock sounded like a death rattle.
Naomi made her way to the library on the second floor. Her flashlight beam swept across the towering rows of leather-bound books until it illuminated the massive, hand-carved Dutch grandfather clock standing in the corner.
She reached inside the pendulum housing, her fingers brushing the brass counterweights until she felt it: a tiny key taped to the underside of the heavy pendulum leaf.
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Turning to Marcus’s humidor on the mahogany desk, she unlocked the rosewood case. Beneath three layers of dried tobacco leaves lay a false bottom made of Spanish cedar. Inside sat a heavy iron key stamped with the insignia: *Banque Privée — Safe 389* and a small, black USB flash drive labeled: *MARCUS — FINAL INSURANCE.*
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