Chapter 6
Agent Reeves shouted for medics before anyone moved down the ladder.
The sound from below came again.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then a hoarse cry.
“Please.”
My legs nearly gave out.
Mara grabbed my hand.
This time, I didn’t pull away.
A rescue officer clipped a light to his vest and climbed down first.
Another followed.
The rest of us stood around the hatch, staring into the dark hole beneath Walker Garage.
I heard radios crackle.
Boots scrape metal.
Then a voice from below shouted, “We have a person!”
Agent Reeves leaned over.
“Condition?”
“Alive. Dehydrated. Conscious. Male. There are files down here too. Lots of them.”
I turned to Caleb.
His face had gone white.
“Who is it?” I whispered.
He shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
The medics brought him up ten minutes later.
He was thin.
Filthy.
Wrapped in a thermal blanket.
His beard was tangled, his lips cracked, and his eyes were sunken.
But when Caleb saw him, he made a sound I had never heard from a grown man.
“Jonah?”
The man’s eyes rolled toward him.
“Reed?”
Caleb moved forward, but Agent Reeves stopped him gently.
“You know him?”
Caleb swallowed.
“Jonah Price. Accountant. He disappeared five years ago.”
Five years.
My skin prickled.
Jonah’s gaze found me.
He stared like he was seeing a ghost.
“Ethan’s girl,” he rasped.
I stepped closer.
“I’m Lily.”
His eyes filled.
“He said you’d come.”
My mouth went dry.
“My father knew you were down there?”
Jonah shook his head weakly.
“No. He built it to hide evidence. Martin used it for me.”
The words hit like stones.
Martin had kept a man under my father’s garage.
Alive.
Hidden.
For years.
Mara covered her mouth.
Agent Reeves crouched beside the stretcher.
“Mr. Price, who put you down there?”
Jonah closed his eyes.
“Martin Walker. Alden knew.”
The medics tried to move him.
He grabbed my wrist with surprising strength.
“The blue ledger,” he said. “Don’t let them take it.”
“Where?”
“Wall safe. Behind the old compressor sign. Code is your birthday.”
Then his hand fell.
The medics rushed him outside.
I stood frozen.
My birthday.
Dad again.
Always Dad.
Agent Reeves sent a team down.
They came up with boxes.
Hard drives.
Cash.
Photos.
Fake titles.
And a blue ledger wrapped in plastic.
When Agent Reeves opened it, even she lost color.
“What is it?” I asked.
She looked at me carefully.
“A record of payments. Judges. Deputies. Bank officers. Contractors. Child services employees.”
“Child services?”
Her mouth tightened.
“Lily, your uncle’s network may have been bigger than property theft.”
Mara stepped forward.
“What does that mean?”
Agent Reeves did not answer right away.
That was answer enough.
By afternoon, news vans gathered outside the fence.
Martin’s arrest had leaked.
Alden’s too.
But nobody knew about Jonah yet.
Agent Reeves kept it sealed while they moved evidence.
I sat in Dad’s old office on an overturned bucket, staring at the place where his desk used to be.
Mara stood in the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
I almost said no.
Then I nodded.
She sat on the floor across from me, not too close.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Finally, I said, “Did Dad know Martin was this evil?”
“He knew he was greedy,” she said. “He knew he was dangerous. But this?” Her voice broke. “I don’t think so.”
“Why did Martin hate him?”
“Because Ethan was loved without trying.”
I looked up.
Mara gave a sad smile.
“Their father was hard. Cruel sometimes. Martin learned to measure worth in control. Ethan refused. He was poor half the time, stubborn all the time, and people still trusted him. Martin couldn’t stand it.”
I thought of my uncle’s perfect suits.
His polished shoes.
His dead eyes.
“He told me Dad was weak.”
“Your father was the strongest man I ever knew.”
I wanted to believe her.
I did believe her.
That made my chest hurt.
“Tell me something real,” I said.
“About him?”
“About you. About why I should believe anything you say.”
She took the blow.
“I was nineteen when I met Ethan. My car died outside the garage. I had twelve dollars and no idea how to get home. He fixed it for free and pretended it was because the problem was easy.”
Despite myself, I listened.
“He asked me out three times. I said no three times. The fourth time, he brought you into the office in a baby carrier and asked if I could watch you while he ran across the street for formula because the sitter canceled. I said yes. When he came back, you were asleep on my chest.”
My throat tightened.
“He said you chose me before he did.”
I looked down.
“I don’t remember you.”
“I know.”
“That makes me angry.”
“It should.”
“I needed a mother.”
Tears slipped down her face.
“I know.”
“I needed you when Dad died.”
“I know.”
“I needed you when Martin took everything.”
“I know.”
Her voice shattered on the last one.
I expected excuses.
She gave me none.
My anger had nowhere to land.
So it stayed inside me, heavy and tired.
Caleb appeared at the doorway.
“Agent Reeves needs you.”
We followed him outside.
The sun was going down.
Jonah had been taken to the hospital under guard.
The evidence trucks were nearly loaded.
Agent Reeves stood beside her SUV holding a phone.
“Martin’s lawyer filed an emergency petition,” she said.
“For what?” I asked.
“To have you declared mentally unstable and placed under temporary protective custody.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Mara stepped in front of me.
“He can’t do that from jail.”
“He just did,” Agent Reeves said. “Through a judge listed in the blue ledger.”
Caleb cursed.
Agent Reeves continued, “We can fight it. But until the order is challenged, it gives local officers authority to detain Lily.”
Fear surged through me.
“But Alden’s arrested.”
“Not all his people are.”
At that exact moment, tires screamed outside the fence.
A white van crashed through the open gate.
Men in plain clothes jumped out.
One shouted, “Court order! Lily Walker comes with us!”
Caleb grabbed my arm.
Mara grabbed the other.
Agent Reeves drew her weapon.
“Behind me!”
May you like
But the men kept coming.
And one of them had my eviction officer’s face.
