Chapter 22 - The Unopened Door
The silence that followed the harsh buzz was absolute.
Detective Miller stepped forward, his brow furrowed. "Try it again. Sometimes the moisture from the rain interferes with the optical sensor."
Khloe wiped her thumb against her jeans and pressed it against the glass again.
**ACCESS DENIED.**
"That's impossible," Isabella gasped, stepping forward, her hand flying to her mouth. "Dad set the lock himself! Catherine said it was coded to his biological heir!"
"Let me check the system registry," the depository manager said nervously, pulling a digital tablet from his podium and scanning the box's serial number. He tapped the screen rapidly, his eyes widening behind his bifocals.
"What is it?" I asked, my instincts flaring back into combat readiness. "What does the registry say?"
"The lock configuration was updated," the manager stammered, looking up at us with genuine shock. "It wasn't updated two months before Anthony Davis died. It was updated seventy-two hours ago."
"Seventy-two hours?" Khloe repeated, her voice dropping. "Catherine was under surveillance seventy-two hours ago. Her lawyers were in settlement conferences."
"It wasn't Catherine Davis who updated the lock," the manager said, turning the tablet toward us.
On the screen was a high-resolution security snapshot taken at the front desk of Bay State Vaults three days prior.
The person standing at the counter, wearing an expensive tailored coat, signing the digital authorization pad with Anthony Davis’s original primary power of attorney, was not Catherine.
It was a man in his late fifties. Tall, broad-shouldered, with silver hair, piercing gray eyes, and a sharp, aristocratic jawline.
A man who looked unmistakably like Anthony Davis.
"That's... that's impossible," Isabella whispered, backing away until she hit the cold marble wall of the vault. "Dad was cremated. I saw the ashes. Khloe and I scattered his ashes at the lake house!"
"Who is that?" I demanded, pointing at the tablet.
"The registry identifies him as Arthur Davis," the manager read, his voice trembling. "Anthony Davis’s twin brother. The co-founder of Davis International Capital."
Khloe gripped my arm, her fingers digging through my jacket down to the bone. "Uncle Arthur died twenty years ago. In an offshore boating accident off the coast of Maine. His body was never recovered. Dad claimed the life insurance and absorbed his entire share of the company."
"Apparently," Detective Miller muttered, reaching for his radio, "Uncle Arthur didn't drown."
Before Miller could transmit, the heavy overhead fluorescent lights of the subterranean vault flickered once, twice, and died.
May you like
The entire chamber plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
***
