The Locker Beneath the Meridian
Chapter 06 - The Locker Beneath the Meridian
The Meridian Hotel still stood, if a burned building could be said to stand.
Its windows were boarded. Black stains climbed the brick. Developers had bought and abandoned it twice, as if the place refused to become anything except evidence.
Kate stood across the street with Damon's coat over her shoulders and a cast strapped to her chest.
"You can wait in the car," Damon said.
"And miss the part where my life explains itself? No."
Adrian muttered, "I like her."
Damon gave him one look.
"Silently."
They entered through the old laundry door. The hotel smelled of wet plaster, smoke, and time. Flashlights moved over broken tile and peeling wallpaper.
Kate imagined her father walking these halls in a security jacket. She imagined Nathaniel carrying a blue blanket. She imagined Lila running with terror in her throat.
The locker room was beneath the main stairs.
Number 27 still had a lock.
Her birthday was February seventh.
Kate's hand shook as Damon turned the key.
Inside was a plastic bin wrapped in black tape.
The first thing they found was the blue baby blanket.
Kate touched it with two fingers.
She did not cry.
Not yet.
The next items were envelopes marked with names.
PRESTON CALDWELL.
RICHARD CALDWELL.
MARTIN VALE.
SILAS BLACKWELL.
Damon went very still at his father's name.
Kate looked at him.
"Did you know?"
"I knew he was cruel. I didn't know he was entrepreneurial about babies."
The sentence was dry enough to cut, but his eyes were not dry at all.
At the bottom of the box lay a contract.
It listed an offshore payment, a private adoption transfer, and signatures from Caldwell, Vale, and Silas Blackwell.
Kate read until the words turned meaningless.
"They were selling me."
"Yes."
"My father stopped it."
"He tried."
A voice came from the hallway.
"He should have minded his own business."
Preston Caldwell appeared in the doorway holding a gun in his left hand.
His right wrist was bandaged from where Damon had broken his network and perhaps his sleep.
Adrian drew immediately.
Damon moved in front of Kate.
Preston laughed.
"Still playing protector? Careful, Blackwell. Your father wanted the girl too."
Kate gripped the blanket.
"Why are you here?"
"Because the box belongs to my family."
"I was in the box," she said. "So no."
Preston's face twisted.
He pointed the gun at her.
Then another voice spoke from behind him.
"Put it down, Preston."
Lila Moreno stepped into view, rain in her hair and eleven years of running in her eyes.
Kate could not breathe.
Preston turned.
That was his mistake.
Damon moved.
The gun went off into the ceiling. Plaster rained down. Adrian slammed Preston to the floor.
Lila stood trembling in the doorway.
Kate stared at the woman who had given birth to her and vanished into myth.
"You came," Kate whispered.
Lila nodded.
"I should have come sooner."
Police sirens wailed outside.
Damon looked at Kate.
"Federal agents. Not Caldwell's men."
She realized then that he had listened when she asked him not to make bodies.
Preston screamed on the floor as Adrian cuffed him with plastic ties.
From his jacket pocket, a folded paper slipped onto the tile.
Kate bent slowly and picked it up.
It was an adoption contract.
At the bottom, beneath Silas Blackwell's signature, was a clause written in smaller print.
If transfer fails, custody of asset reverts to the Bennett Trust on beneficiary's twenty-eighth birthday.
Kate looked up.
"My birthday is in six weeks."
Damon's expression changed.
Adrian read over his shoulder.
"Boss. The Bennett Trust owns collateral."
"What collateral?" Kate asked.
Adrian looked at Damon.
"The Blackwell estate."
May you like
Preston started laughing from the floor.
And Kate realized the house where her arm had been broken might legally become hers.
