Chapter 4 - The Safe Under the Floorboards
Nathaniel stood frozen in the center of the empty diner as his own photograph flashed across the television screen above the words Fugitive Tycoon Wanted for Questioning.
In less than sixty seconds, his carefully controlled six-week experiment had mutated into a lethal legal guillotine—his four billion dollars in Swiss reserves were locked behind a federal fraud freeze, his best friend was in handcuffs, and the forty-eight dollars in cash sitting inside his waiter's apron pocket was literally every cent he had left in the world.
I never signed a confession, and Howard wouldn't steal a dime from me if his life depended on it, Nathaniel said, his mind racing to reconstruct the timeline.
Julian Sterling used the laptop passcode Vivian stole from my bedroom to plant falsified wire transfers inside the Horizon Ridge server, and when Howard realized the trap was closing this morning, somebody lured him to that airport tarmac to frame us both!
Then why is Julian Sterling wasting his time foreclosing on a tiny diner and a hardware store in Millbrook on the exact same day he steals a four-billion-dollar company in Manhattan, Clara asked sharply, walking over to the front window and flipping the entrance sign to Closed before drawing the vinyl blinds shut.
That is the million-dollar question, Clara, because a shark like Julian doesn't drive two hours north of Wall Street just to seize a two-hundred-thousand-dollar country kitchen, Nathaniel agreed, stepping beside her as dusk began to settle over the quiet town street.
Before Clara could reply, the heavy iron latch on the rear alley delivery door rattled violently as someone tried to force a crowbar into the steel frame from the outside.
Through the frosted glass of the back kitchen door, two burly men wearing dark leather jackets and carrying heavy iron lock-breakers and a portable blowtorch were visible standing beside an unmarked black van parked in the alley!
Those aren't county sheriff's deputies—county bailiffs never serve eviction locks after five o'clock, and they certainly don't carry oxy-acetylene blowtorches to a foreclosure, Clara whispered, backing out of the kitchen as the iron crowbar groaned against the deadbolt.
Why would they bring a blowtorch to a diner unless they are looking for a safe they know they can't crack with a stethoscope, Nathaniel asked, grabbing a heavy hickory rolling pin from the prep block and pulling Clara behind him toward the narrow stairwell leading up to her grandfather's old bookkeeping office.
Wait—they are after my grandfather's floor safe in the pantry closet, Clara breathed, her eyes widening with sudden comprehension as she hurried into the walk-in dry goods pantry beneath the stairs and shoved two fifty-pound sacks of flour aside.
Beneath the cedar floorboards sat a recessed nineteen-forties cast-iron Mosler floor safe.
Clara dropped to her knees, spun the brass dial rapidly to the left and right, and hauled the heavy round steel door up just as the rear kitchen door splintered inward with a loud crash!
Instead of fighting the two armed thugs in the narrow hallway where Clara could get hurt, Nathaniel grabbed a twenty-pound stainless-steel canister of pressurized fire-suppression foam from the wall bracket, waited until the two men charged past the walk-in freezer with their crowbars raised, and blasted the blinding, suffocating white chemical foam straight into their faces at point-blank range!
As the two men cursed and stumbled blindly backward over the greased dish racks, Nathaniel slammed the heavy insulated steel door of the dry corridor shut and wedged a solid iron meat-hook bar across the exterior latch, trapping both intruders inside the windowless utility hall.
We have less than five minutes before their driver outside realizes they aren't coming back out, Nathaniel said, turning back to Clara as she pulled a waterproof oilskin pouch out of the floor safe and stuffed it into her canvas backpack.
As they hurried out the front diner door into the gathering darkness and climbed into Nathaniel's rusted Ford pickup behind the woodpile, Clara unzipped the oilskin pouch on her lap under the dim glow of the dashboard.
Inside sat an original, wax-sealed nineteen-eighty-four land and mineral syndicate deed signed by Clara's late grandfather, Arthur Bennett—and right beside his name was the bold black fountain-pen signature of Nathaniel's late father, Charles Whitfield!
Forty years ago, my grandfather and your father secretly bought the subterranean bedrock rights for ten miles along the Millbrook fault line, Clara whispered, pointing at the geological survey map attached to the deed.
Last month, the Pentagon and the transatlantic fiber consortium approved a twelve-billion-dollar sovereign quantum data pipeline from New York to Montreal, and the only geologically stable bedrock corridor that bypasses state eminent domain runs directly underneath Main Street in Millbrook!
Nathaniel stared at the contract in awe: under the nineteen-eighty-four partnership clause, if the Bennett family ever defaulted on their Main Street property taxes or mortgage, one hundred percent of the twelve-billion-dollar corridor rights automatically transferred to Horizon Ridge—the exact fund Julian Sterling was about to seize in bankruptcy court!
Wait, Nate, look at this sealed cream envelope sitting at the bottom of the pouch—it was delivered here by courier two days before your father died three years ago, Clara said, handing him a letter addressed to Nathaniel in his late father's shaky, morphine-weakened handwriting.
May you like
Nathaniel tore open his dead father's letter, and as a single glossy photograph slid out into his palm, his breath stopped cold in his throat.
The letter warned Nathaniel that if Horizon Ridge was ever attacked from within, he should look at the person who had brought Vivian Caldwell into their lives—and the photograph dated three years ago showed Vivian clinking champagne glasses at a private table in Paris with Julian Sterling and Nathaniel's beloved stepmother, Evelyn Whitfield!
