Chapter 74 At The Docs
The humidity near the water stuck to Sarah’s skin as she pulled her car into the gravel lot behind the abandoned fish market, and she kept the headlights off to avoid drawing the attention of the private security she knew Richard had patrolling the district.
Mark sat in the passenger seat with his phone in his lap, his thumb hovering over the call button for Alex, but he hadn't pressed it yet because the silence between them was still thick with the things Richard had said in the dining room.
Sarah put the car in park and looked at the row of rusted shipping containers that lined the pier, her eyes searching for the man who had sent the text while she adjusted the collar of her jacket.
"You are sure this isn't a setup to get us in a room with a Vane lawyer, Mom?" Mark asked, his voice sounding low and rough as he looked at the dark windows of the warehouse.
"The Vanes don't use burner phones to talk about signatures, they send a car and a subpoena, so whoever this is wants to stay off the official record just as much as we do," Sarah replied, she opened her door and stepped out onto the damp pavement, the smell of salt and old wood hitting her immediately.
They walked toward the end of the pier where a single yellow light flickered over a small office shack, and a man stepped out of the shadows wearing a heavy work coat and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.
It was Julian, the lead architect who had been working under Helena for the last few months, and he didn't look like the confident professional Sarah had seen at the Harrington board meetings. He looked like a man who hadn't slept in a week, his hands were shoved deep into his pockets and he kept looking over his shoulder at the street.
"I can't go back to the office, Sarah, Helena found out I was the one who leaked the demolition maps to the city council and she’s already started the process to have my license revoked," Julian said, he walked toward them with a quick, nervous stride.
"You didn't leak those maps to help me, Julian, you did it because you didn't want your name on a project that involved illegal zoning, so tell me why we are standing in the dark at midnight," Sarah told him, her voice sounding sharp and business-like as she stood her ground.
"I found the original Vane promissory note in the archive when I was looking for the site deeds, and it isn't what Richard showed you in the dining room today," Julian said, he pulled a folded piece of paper from his coat and handed it to her.
"The signature on the blue folder was a digital composite, Sarah, it was a copy of your 2006 signature pasted onto a document that Arthur Vane never even saw."
Sarah grabbed the paper and used her phone light to read the text, her pulse thumping in her ears as she saw the real document, which was a simple personal loan for five thousand dollars with no mention of security codes or Harrington secrets. She looked at the date and the terms, and she realized that Richard had spent twenty years holding onto a genuine loan just so he could forge a fake one when he needed a weapon to break her.
"He lied to Alex, he made him think I was a spy so he could keep him in that house tonight," Sarah said, her voice sounding cold and steady as she looked at Mark.
"He didn't just lie, he committed a felony to do it, and if we show this to Alex, he’s going to realize that his father just burned the last bridge between them," Mark said, he took the paper from her and read it twice, his face shifting from hurt to a hard, focused anger.
"It’s not just the loan, Helena has been using the Vane trust to pay off the local councilmen to keep the zoning lawsuit alive, and I have the wire transfer logs right here," Julian added, handing Sarah a small flash drive. "She thinks she’s winning because she has the board’s support, but if the Vane family finds out she’s draining their trust to pay for city bribes, they’ll have her in a courtroom by Monday."
"Why give this to us? You could have taken this to the press and made a fortune," Sarah asked, looking at the architect with a look of genuine curiosity.
"Because the press can be bought by a Harrington check, but a woman who has been cheated out of twenty years of her reputation doesn't stop until the person who did it is in the dirt," Julian told her, and he turned to walk away toward the rows of containers. "Don't go back to the estate alone, Sarah, Richard is already moving the Harrington security to the Hayes studio, he’s going to try and seize your files before the morning."
"He’s going to my office?" Sarah asked, her hand tightening on the flash drive.
"He thinks that’s where you keep the original contracts, and he wants them gone before the audit begins," Julian said, and then he disappeared into the darkness of the alley.
Sarah didn't wait to see where he went, she ran back to the car with Mark right behind her, her mind already shifting into a defensive mode that didn't leave room for fear or hesitation. She started the engine and pulled out of the lot with a screech of tires, her eyes fixed on the road that led back to the city center where her life’s work was currently under threat.
"Call Alex, Mark, tell him to get out of that house and meet us at the studio, and tell him if he doesn't answer, I’m walking into that board meeting tomorrow with or without him," Sarah said.
Mark dialed the number and waited for ten seconds before he finally got through, his face tensing as he heard the sound of a struggle on the other end of the line.
"Alex? Alex, listen to me, we have the original papers, Richard lied about the loan, it was a forgery," Mark yelled into the phone, but the only response was the sound of a door slamming and a dial tone.
"What happened? Did he say anything?" Sarah asked, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.
"It sounded like someone took the phone from him, Mom, I think Richard has him on a full security lockdown," Mark said, he looked at her with a look of pure dread.