Chapter 4 - The Girl in the Alley
Victor stared at the photograph until the station around him seemed to disappear.
The woman behind teenage Celeste was Nora Crane.
Julian’s mother.
Victor had met her only once—or so he had believed.
Twenty years earlier, Victor had been leaving a charity dinner when he found Celeste behind a diner. She was thin, bruised, terrified, and unwilling to say where she came from.
Child services found no reliable guardian.
Victor became her foster parent.
Eventually, he adopted her.
Nora Crane had entered his life years later when Celeste introduced Julian.
Yet the photograph proved Nora had been standing twenty feet away the night Victor found Celeste.
“That’s impossible,” Victor whispered.
Lena studied the image.
“You recognize her?”
“Julian’s mother.”
Malik looked toward the station entrance.
“Then somebody wanted you to see this.”
Victor turned the photograph over.
A handwritten address appeared on the back.
An old storage facility in Virginia.
Below it:
UNIT 88. ASK FOR ELIAS.
Victor’s phone had been taken by Celeste, so Lena used a prepaid phone to contact Agent Reed again.
This time Victor spoke.
“The locker was compromised.”
Reed went silent.
“Then we have a leak.”
“I already knew that.”
“No, Victor. You knew I suspected one. If someone accessed Locker 417, they knew about evidence that never entered FBI records.”
Victor felt cold.
Only four people had known about the locker.
Victor.
Reed.
Victor’s missing investigator, Samuel Price.
And Vale Meridian’s former chief compliance officer, Elias Ward.
The name on the photograph.
“Elias is alive,” Victor said.
Reed inhaled sharply.
“Where?”
Victor didn’t answer.
Trust had become too expensive.
Before dawn, Lena drove them south.
During the trip Victor finally asked why she had come to the mansion that night despite being told her shift had been canceled.
Lena hesitated.
“Because you called me.”
“I didn’t.”
She looked at him.
“At 6:12. Your voice said you were having trouble breathing.”
Victor’s stomach tightened.
He had been unconscious at 6:12.
Someone had used a recording of his voice to summon Lena.
Which meant her rescue had not been accidental.
At the Virginia storage facility, they found Unit 88 already unlocked.
Inside stood shelves of financial records, photographs, medication bottles, and surveillance drives.
At the center sat a laptop.
Its screen illuminated as they entered.
A prerecorded video began automatically.
Elias Ward appeared.
He looked exhausted.
“If Victor Vale is watching this, then I am probably dead.”
Lena covered her mouth.
Elias continued.
“Victor, Celeste stole from you. Julian helped her. But neither of them started this.”
Victor stepped closer.
“The theft began before you adopted Celeste.”
A document appeared behind Elias.
It carried the Vale Meridian logo.
Date: twenty-one years earlier.
One year before Victor met his daughter.
May you like
Then Elias delivered the sentence that changed everything.
“Celeste was placed in your path.”
