The Locker With Two Locks
Chapter 04 - The Locker With Two Locks
Warehouse Twelve had been condemned for nine years.
That was what the city records said.
The steel fence around South River Industrial suggested otherwise.
New cameras.
Fresh locks.
Security lights.
Someone had maintained a dead property carefully.
Sadi stood across the street beside Roman’s car at seven the next morning.
“You told me not to leave the building.”
“You ignored me.”
“I came with my mother’s attorney.”
Roman looked behind her.
“No attorney.”
“He stopped returning calls.”
“That concerns you?”
“Yes.”
“It should.”
Teresa remained at a hospital appointment under police watch.
Roman had arranged private security only after Sadi agreed.
He had asked.
That surprised her.
Now he looked at the two keys in separate evidence envelopes.
“My people checked the locker system.”
“And?”
“12-B requires two keys.”
“Of course.”
“One master. One user key.”
“Which is which?”
“Arthur dropped the master.”
Sadi looked at Carlo’s.
“So Carlo had the user key.”
“Yes.”
“Why would an accountant have a private locker at a warehouse?”
“That is what we’re here to find out.”
Federal agents were not present.
Sadi had asked twice.
Roman had replied twice that the agents he trusted were still verifying jurisdiction.
She disliked sentences containing “agents I trust.”
Still, she came.
Because nine years of grief had suddenly acquired a door.
Roman opened the gate.
Two security men followed at a distance.
Sadi stopped.
“You said two.”
“I said two men.”
“That is what I mean.”
“They’re staying outside the building.”
“Fine.”
Roman looked at her.
“You negotiate when frightened.”
“I negotiate all the time.”
“You become more precise when frightened.”
She stared.
“You observe too much.”
“So do you.”
Inside, Warehouse Twelve smelled of dust, old rain, and rust.
The fire scars remained along the west wall.
Sadi had never been here.
Her mother had forbidden it after Carlo died.
Now every blackened beam looked like a sentence nobody finished.
Locker 12-B stood in a corridor behind the former accounting office.
Two keyholes.
Roman inserted Arthur’s key.
Sadi inserted Carlo’s.
“Together,” he said.
They turned.
The lock opened.
Inside was not a box of cash.
Not drugs.
Not weapons.
Files.
Six thick binders wrapped in plastic.
A portable hard drive.
And a cassette recorder.
Sadi stared.
“Carlo made backups.”
Roman lifted one binder.
Environmental reports.
Waste manifests.
Employee injury logs.
Sadi opened another.
Invoices from Bellini Chemical Disposal.
A company she had never heard of.
Roman had.
His face changed.
“What?”
“Bellini’s father owned it.”
“Arthur’s father?”
“Yes.”
A cold line moved down Sadi’s spine.
“So the Bellinis handled waste for Moretti Logistics.”
Roman nodded.
She found a table.
Pages showed solvents, degreasers, industrial runoff.
Then numbers that did not match disposal receipts.
“What am I looking at?”
Roman leaned beside her.
“Missing tonnage.”
“You know that from one glance?”
“My family transported half of Chicago’s industrial waste for twenty years.”
“Comforting again.”
“It shouldn’t be.”
Sadi traced the entries.
“Waste came in but did not leave through certified disposal.”
“Yes.”
“Then where did it go?”
Roman looked toward the concrete floor.
Her stomach sank.
“Buried here?”
“Or dumped into the river.”
Sadi thought of her mother’s kidneys.
Then hated herself for the thought.
One illness did not prove one exposure.
Law school had taught her not to force facts into a story just because the story hurt.
She opened another binder.
Employee health claims.
Carlo’s name appeared.
Not as claimant.
As reviewer.
He had flagged unusual clusters of respiratory disease.
Skin lesions.
Kidney failure.
Her hand trembled.
Roman saw it.
“What?”
“My mother.”
He waited.
“She has kidney disease.”
Roman’s expression changed.
Not guilt.
Concern.
“Did she ever work here?”
“No.”
“Carlo brought uniforms home?”
“Yes.”
“Dust? Work clothes?”
“Yes.”
Sadi pressed her lips together.
Secondary exposure.
Possible.
Not certain.
She forced herself back to the page.
A signature appeared beneath several waste approvals.
V. Moretti.
Roman’s father.
Her chest tightened.
“You said Arthur’s family handled disposal.”
“They did.”
“Your father approved it.”
Roman looked at the signature.
“Yes.”
No defense.
Sadi almost wanted one.
A person is easier to hate when they cooperate.
Roman opened the hard drive case.
A handwritten note was taped beneath it.
IF I DIE, GIVE THIS TO BIANCA.
Roman went completely still.
Sadi looked at him.
“Who is Bianca?”
“My mother.”
“I thought your mother died.”
“No.”
The answer surprised her.
“Where is she?”
“France.”
“Why?”
“She left my father.”
“When?”
Roman stared at the note.
“Two weeks after the warehouse fire.”
Sadi felt the story shift.
“Did Carlo know her?”
Roman shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
The cassette recorder contained one tape.
Sadi pressed play.
Static filled the warehouse.
Then Carlo’s voice.
She knew it immediately.
Older than her memory.
Tired.
“If anyone finds this, Arthur knows.”
Roman looked at her.
Carlo continued.
“Vittorio says he wants to stop it. I don’t know whether I believe him.”
Sadi covered her mouth.
“He says Bianca has the original disposal permits.”
Roman went pale.
The tape crackled.
Then:
“If Arthur finds out she copied them, he’ll kill her.”
A long pause.
“And if Vittorio is lying, then God help both of us.”
The recording stopped.
Sadi looked at Roman.
“Your mother knew.”
“Yes.”
“Your father may have been trying to stop it.”
“Yes.”
“Or covering himself.”
“Yes.”
Sadi almost shouted at him for agreeing again.
Then footsteps sounded somewhere beyond the corridor.
Not Roman’s men.
Too close.
Roman switched off the recorder.
He reached inside his jacket.
Sadi stared.
“You said your men weren’t visibly armed.”
“I said my men.”
He drew a pistol.
“That did not include you?”
“No.”
A shadow crossed the doorway.
Roman moved Sadi behind him.
She hated how natural it felt.
A man entered.
Gray suit.
No weapon visible.
He raised both hands.
“Easy.”
Roman did not lower the gun.
Sadi recognized the man from photographs in old news articles.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
The man looked at Roman.
Then at her.
“My name is Gabriel Shaw.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Gabriel smiled faintly.
“So was Carlo’s evidence.”
May you like
Then he looked at Sadi.
“And your stepfather did not die in an electrical fire.”
