Chapter 4: The Storage Unit on Pratt Street
They got off one stop early.
Daniel moved quickly for a man carrying a briefcase, steering her through the thin crowd on the Lisle platform without touching her, just positioning himself half a step ahead so she followed without thinking.
They took the stairs down to street level and walked three blocks before he flagged a cab.
"Don't use your phone," he said, once they were inside and moving.
"Not your regular one."
"I don't have another one."
He reached into his coat and handed her a prepaid.
Still in the packaging.
"You've been planning this for a while," she said.
"Since I confirmed you were alive." He looked straight ahead.
"That took eight months."
Clara turned the prepaid phone over in her hands.
Outside, the suburbs scrolled past in the dark.
"The storage unit is in Baltimore," she said.
"That's not exactly around the corner."
"We're not going tonight.
Tonight we need somewhere Holt's people won't look." He gave the driver an address she didn't recognize.
"A colleague's apartment.
She knows the situation.
She'll ask you questions.
Answer them honestly."
"What kind of questions?"
"The kind that establish whether the documents your father gave you are still legally viable as federal evidence after three years." He finally turned to look at her.
"Because if they are, Clara, this doesn't end with Holt losing his job.
This ends with him in a federal penitentiary.
But only if the chain of custody holds."
The cab turned onto a quiet residential street and stopped in front of a narrow brownstone.
The woman who answered the door was in her late fifties, silver-haired, wearing reading glasses pushed up on her forehead.
She looked at Clara the way a doctor looks at an X-ray—not unkindly, but with complete professional focus.
"You look like your father," she said.
"Come in."
Her name was Grace Ellison.
Former federal prosecutor.
She had a pot of coffee already made and a yellow legal pad on the kitchen table.
"Sit down," she said.
"Both of you."
She asked Clara to walk through everything she remembered from the last three years.
Clara talked for forty minutes.
Grace wrote and did not interrupt.
When Clara finished, Grace set her pen down.
"The documents in that storage unit—assuming they're intact—would constitute direct evidence of wire fraud, securities fraud, and obstruction of justice.
The statute of limitations on the federal charges has not expired." She looked at Daniel.
"If the unit hasn't been accessed."
"It hasn't," Daniel said.
"I've had eyes on it."
"Then we have a case." Grace folded her hands on the legal pad.
"But there's a problem."
Clara looked at her.
"Holt isn't operating alone anymore.
Three years ago, this was a financial crjme being covered up.
In the time since, he's expanded.
Two sitting members of the Illinois state legislature have received significant contributions from Holt's PAC.
One of the federal investigators originally assigned to the Vance-Holt case was quietly transferred after asking too many questions." Grace's voice didn't change register.
"We cannot go through standard channels.
Not yet.
Not until we have the documents in hand and a federal contact I trust personally."
"How long does that take?" Clara asked.
"If everything goes smoothly?
Seventy-two hours."
"And if it doesn't go smoothly?"
Grace looked at her over the reading glasses.
"Then we find out exactly how far Holt's reach extends." She stood and refilled the coffee cups.
"You'll stay here tonight.
There's a room at the end of the hall.
Lock the door, not because I don't trust you, but because it's a good habit to have right now."
Clara wrapped both hands around the coffee cup.
"He's been my supervisor for two years," she said quietly.
"He's seen me every day.
He looked right at me."
Grace sat back down.
"He didn't recognize you," Daniel said.
"The relocation changed your appearance slightly—hair, weight, the way you carry yourself.
And more importantly, he believed you were d\*ad.
People don't look for what they're certain is gone."
"But something changed," Clara said.
"You said they were on that train tonight.
Something made them start looking again."
Daniel and Grace exchanged a glance.
"Three weeks ago," Daniel said carefully, "someone accessed a sealed court record in Baltimore.
The original missing persons file on Clara Vance." He paused.
"The access was logged under a username registered to Meridian Analytics."
Clara set the coffee cup down.
"He knows," she said.
"He suspects," Daniel said.
"There's a difference.
But yes—the window is closing."
From somewhere in the apartment, Grace's phone buzzed against a hard surface.
She picked it up, read the screen, and went very still.
"Daniel," she said.
May you like
He looked up.
"They found the cab."
