Chapter 4 - LOCKER 317
Glass rained across the study floor.
Dylan covered Molly with his body.
“Stay down.”
Another shot punched through the bookcase.
His security team returned fire from somewhere outside.
Molly’s ears rang.
Dylan dragged her behind a stone fireplace.
“How many?”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“Can you hear how many shooters?”
“I work in a restaurant, Dylan!”
“Fair point.”
Despite everything, she almost laughed.
Then another window shattered.
No laugh came.
A man’s voice sounded through Dylan’s earpiece.
“South wall breached. Three inside.”
Dylan pulled a handgun from beneath his jacket.
Molly stared at it.
He noticed.
“You can hate it after we survive.”
“I already hate it.”
“Good.”
Footsteps approached outside the study.
Dylan positioned himself beside the door.
Molly saw a heavy brass fireplace tool.
She grabbed it.
Dylan looked at her.
“No.”
“You’re armed.”
“And trained.”
“I’m angry.”
“That is not the same thing.”
The handle turned.
Dylan fired once.
A man dropped his weapon and disappeared backward.
More shouting.
Then silence.
Five minutes later, Dylan’s security chief entered.
“Clear.”
Dylan lowered the gun.
“Casualties?”
“Two of ours injured. Nobody dead.”
“Attackers?”
“One captured. Two escaped.”
“Who sent them?”
“We’re working on it.”
Molly stepped around the fireplace.
The security chief looked at her.
“They weren’t here to kill Mr. Burroughs.”
“I heard.”
“They had zip ties. Sedatives.”
Her stomach tightened.
Dylan’s jaw became rigid.
“They wanted you.”
“Because of the key?”
“Maybe.”
Molly looked at the cracked collar on the floor.
“If they knew the key existed, why wait eleven years?”
Dylan answered slowly.
“Because they didn’t know who had it.”
“Until Atlas disappeared.”
“Yes.”
Molly thought of the hidden room beneath Blackwoods.
Photographs.
Surveillance.
Her father’s message.
“They were watching me in case my father gave me something.”
“And when he didn’t, they watched Atlas.”
“Why take him now?”
Dylan looked at the evidence photograph again.
“I announced my engagement six weeks ago.”
Molly frowned.
“So?”
“Libby gained access to my house.”
“And found Atlas’s old things?”
“Possibly.”
“But why would she care?”
“Because her father worked for Conrad.”
Molly froze.
“Worked?”
“Still does, probably.”
“Who is Libby’s father?”
“Victor Kemp publicly owns a property-development company.”
“And privately?”
“He launders money.”
“For your uncle?”
“For whoever pays.”
Molly sat on the edge of the desk.
“So your marriage was business.”
“At first.”
She looked at him.
“And later?”
Dylan was silent.
“Never mind.”
“No.”
He holstered his weapon.
“I cared about her.”
Molly hadn’t expected honesty.
“I thought she understood what I was trying to change.”
“What are you trying to change?”
“My organization.”
She almost rolled her eyes.
“That is an impressive way of saying crime family.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t deny it.”
“No.”
“Are you a murderer?”
Dylan looked directly at her.
“I have killed people.”
The bluntness chilled her.
“Were they trying to kill you?”
“Some.”
“And the others?”
Dylan’s expression closed.
“One.”
Molly waited.
“I was twenty-four. He betrayed my father. I was ordered to prove loyalty.”
“You did it.”
“Yes.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Every day.”
She studied him.
Regret did not equal innocence.
But lack of denial mattered.
“My father trusted you enough to hide that note.”
“At the end, maybe.”
“That does not mean I do.”
“I know.”
Molly picked up the brass key.
“Then let’s find out what he wanted me to see.”
The old Union Station had closed its passenger platforms years ago, but the original locker hall remained beneath the renovated west wing.
Dylan arranged access before dawn.
Molly insisted on going.
“You were nearly abducted.”
“And if I stay at your house?”
“They’ll have difficulty reaching you.”
“They just shot through your study.”
Dylan sighed.
“Again. Fair point.”
They arrived with four security men.
The station smelled like dust, stone, and old rain.
Molly had not been there since childhood.
She remembered her father buying hot chocolate from a machine near the stairs.
She remembered sitting on his shoulders.
She remembered locker 317.
It was still there.
Rows of old brass doors lined one wall.
Dylan stopped several feet away.
“This could be trapped.”
“My father wasn’t building bombs.”
“You’ve learned quite a lot about your father tonight.”
She glared.
Dylan raised one hand.
“Bad phrasing.”
Security checked the locker.
No wires.
No explosive residue.
Nothing obvious.
Molly inserted the key.
It turned.
Her hand remained on the handle.
Eleven years.
Whatever Patrick Lane had hidden was on the other side.
She opened it.
Inside sat a metal lunchbox.
Nothing else.
Molly almost laughed.
Her father had carried the same style of lunchbox to work every day.
She placed it on a bench.
Dylan stayed back.
“This is yours.”
Molly opened the clasps.
Inside lay three cassette tapes.
A notebook.
A photograph.
And an envelope with her name.
MOLLY.
Her knees weakened.
She sat.
Dylan looked away while she opened it.
Sweetheart,
If you are reading this, then I did not get the chance to explain the part of my life I most regret.
Molly stopped.
Her vision blurred.
She forced herself to continue.
I spent years working for men who believed fear was the same thing as respect. I told myself I was keeping food on our table. Then I told myself I was protecting you by staying useful. Both were excuses.
There is one young man among them I still believe can choose differently. Dylan Burroughs has done things he will carry forever. But I saw him stop when stopping cost him something. That matters.
If he answers the river question, he kept a promise no one else knows about.
Do not trust him because I did.
Make him earn it.
Molly looked up.
Dylan had moved to the far side of the room.
He wasn’t reading over her shoulder.
She continued.
The notebook is not the ledger.
It tells you where the ledger is.
Do not give it to police in Harrow Falls.
Some of them are inside it.
Do not give it to Raymond.
If Raymond is still smiling at you, run.
Molly closed her eyes.
Her father had known.
Raymond had spent years pretending to protect her.
She continued.
Atlas knows the place.
He found me there the first time.
If Atlas is alive, follow him.
If he is not, look for the stone angel with the broken hand.
I love you more than every mistake I made.
Dad.
Molly pressed the letter to her chest.
For several minutes nobody spoke.
Finally Dylan approached.
“You don’t have to show me.”
She handed him the notebook.
He read the first page.
Names.
Dates.
Numbers.
A map sketched in Patrick’s handwriting.
At the center was Mill Creek Cemetery.
Dylan’s expression tightened.
“The stone angel.”
Molly nodded.
Her father had been buried there.
They left immediately.
Sunlight was beginning to rise over Harrow Falls when they entered the cemetery.
Patrick Lane’s grave sat beneath a maple tree.
Molly had visited hundreds of times.
She had never noticed the angel twenty yards behind it.
Old stone.
One hand broken away.
Dylan stopped.
“There.”
Behind the statue, hidden by ivy, was a small metal marker.
A dog paw had been scratched into it.
Molly knelt.
Beneath loose soil, they found a waterproof container.
Inside was no ledger.
Only another note.
Dylan read it.
“Atlas knows the rest.”
Molly sighed.
“We need him.”
Then she noticed something carved into the bottom of the container.
Coordinates.
Dylan photographed them.
His security chief entered them into a map.
The location appeared.
Everyone went quiet.
Molly stared.
It was not a warehouse.
Not a bank.
Not one of Dylan’s properties.
It was Blackwoods.
More specifically, the foundation beneath Blackwoods.
Molly whispered, “The hidden room.”
Dylan shook his head.
“Not the room we found.”
“How do you know?”
“The coordinates are thirty feet deeper.”
Molly remembered the old coal corridor.
“What’s beneath it?”
Dylan looked at her.
“According to city records?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing.”
They returned to the veterinary clinic.
Atlas was awake.
Weak but standing.
The moment Molly entered, he pulled against the technician holding his leash.
She crouched.
Atlas buried his massive head against her chest.
“I missed you too.”
Dylan showed Atlas the old leather collar.
The dog sniffed it.
Then whined.
Molly held Patrick’s photograph beneath his nose.
Atlas stiffened.
He pawed at the door.
Kessler frowned.
“I don’t recommend a field trip.”
Dylan looked at Molly.
“He wants to go.”
“He can barely walk.”
Atlas pulled again.
Harder.
Kessler sighed.
“Ten minutes. Then he comes back.”
Thirty minutes later they were beneath Blackwoods.
Atlas limped down the coal corridor with Molly beside him.
He ignored the hidden room.
Passed it.
Reached the flooded end of the tunnel.
Then stopped beside a brick wall.
He scratched once.
Dylan’s men examined it.
One brick moved.
Behind it was a narrow steel door.
Old.
Rusting.
Locked from the other side.
They forced it open.
Cold air rushed upward.
Stone steps descended into darkness.
Atlas growled.
Molly whispered, “What is down there?”
Dylan switched on a flashlight.
“I think we’re finally going to find out.”
They descended.
Thirty steps.
Forty.
The underground chamber smelled like wet earth.
At the far end stood an old wooden desk.
On it sat a metal case.
Dylan approached.
Molly saw Patrick Lane’s initials.
P.L.
Her heart hammered.
Dylan opened the case.
Inside were dozens of handwritten ledgers.
Photographs.
Payment records.
Bank numbers.
Names.
Everything her father had died protecting.
Molly stared.
“We found it.”
Dylan didn’t answer.
His attention had moved to the wall.
A recent photograph had been pinned there.
It showed Molly leaving Blackwoods two nights ago.
Across her face, someone had drawn a red X.
Below it was a date.
Tonight.
And beneath the date were three words.
FINISH PATRICK’S BLOODLINE.
Molly turned.
Atlas began growling at the darkness behind them.
Then a slow clap echoed from the stairway.
Libby Kemp stepped into the chamber.
She wasn’t wearing red anymore.
She was holding a gun.
And beside her stood Conrad Burroughs.
Dylan’s uncle smiled.
May you like
“Thank you,” Conrad said.
“We’ve been looking for this room for eleven years.”
