Chapter Fifteen
HONOR
I turned back to my box, letting Hugh’s words sink into my brain and mulling them over. The ledger had new meaning. It wasn’t just about the money. It was about so much more. It was about Teddy getting justice. It was about years of hard work. It was about doing what was right.
“We’ll find the ledger,” I said, swallowing around the lump in my throat. We had to.
Thirty minutes later, all of the boxes had been searched, and we’d still come up empty-handed. There wasn’t a single thing that remotely resembled like a ledger containing a ton of numbers. Nothing to suggest that Teddy wasn’t more than just an accountant who liked to play guitar.
I sat on the hard-concrete floor, back propped up against one wall, my feet crossed in front of me.
Hugh sat next to me, his feet on the ground and his arms crossed and resting on his knees. “I don’t get it. He said he left it with his stuff.”
“Maybe he lied,” I said, turning to look at the confusion on Hugh’s face. “Maybe it was all a setup to get us to meet and a way of keeping you safe.”
“Me safe?” Hugh tsked and shook his head. “No…no way. He wouldn’t have sent me on a wild goose chase. You saw Victor’s guys with your own eyes. They knew about you. They must think you have the ledger.”
Silence followed while I picked apart his answer. “How did they find out about me? How did they know where to find you?”
Hugh’s brows pulled together, and he frowned.
“Who did you tell?”
He opened his mouth and snapped it closed. “I haven’t told anyone since Teddy told me at our last visit.” His brows dipped. The corner of his mouth slid into a frown. “I haven’t even told my boss.”
“Yet they knew about me, and they knew where to find you,” I said, guiding him to the logical conclusion I’d already made. “Hugh.” I swallowed hard. “What if some of the guards or his lawyer was on the take? They were the only ones who would have had access to overhear the conversations, right? Who was around you when Teddy was telling you about all of this?”
“No one. We were in an interrogation room. It was just Me, Teddy, Teddy’s lawyer and one guard that was stationed near the door.” His gaze turned darker. “I even made sure they weren’t recording by checking to see if the lights on the camera worked. They weren’t recording.”
“They must have gotten to the lawyer, or maybe the room was bugged,” I said.
Regardless of how it went down. I was now certain of two things. One, Teddy had kept Hugh and I apart on purpose. And two, this guy Victor had eyes and ears everywhere.
This wasn’t going to require just one sister’s help. It was going to require them all.
“We need to find a way out of this building and to my sister’s house,” I said, shoving to my feet.
Hugh rose with me and winced. His shoulder must have been paining him. “Your sister isn’t going to be able to help me.” Hugh gestured to the boxes. “The ledger isn’t even here.”
A smile curved on my lips. “Just because we haven’t found it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Teddy was smarter than you ever gave him credit for, and my sisters are going to help me finish this, not just for him but for you too.”
I grabbed several of the glow sticks, closed my storage container, and locked it up again before heading down the twisty hall to the exit door.
The glass inserts in the window showed that the rain had started to let up. The lights were off in the security office we’d pass, and the other businesses down the street were out too.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Hugh offered.
I located the map of the two-story storage facility hanging on the wall with the list of units and their locations.
“Looks like there’s three exits,” I tapped my finger on the one we needed. “All of the ones at street level will be locked, but if we’re lucky, this one, on the roof, won’t be.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Hugh asked, following me through the corridor toward the stairs.
“Call it a gut feeling. The bottom is to keep the riffraff from looting the place when there’s a power outage. Keep your fingers crossed,” I said, trying each of the emergency exits as we passed.
They’d all been over-ridden. If, God forbid, this place caught on fire, we’d be screwed. The first call I’d make was to code enforcement when this was all over.
I jogged up the stairs to the second floor and found the emergency exit. I pushed on it, and it opened. I’d never been so happy to be rained on.
“Freedom,” I called out, twirling in place before heading to the side of the building to look over the edge. I caught sight of the stairs and grinned. “I hope you aren’t afraid of heights.”
Chapter Sixteen
Getting to Mercy’s house took longer than I’d thought. The roads were empty, and we were having to stick to the shadows to get there or risk being picked up and thrown in jail. County- and city-mandated curfews were no joke. Police would be looking for people like us, people who had no business on the streets, so I had to leave Grams’ SUV at the storage unit.
“How do you know she’s even home?” Hugh asked, resting his hand over the bandage on his shoulder.
“She’ll be there. And on the off chance she’s not, she’ll have made her way to our parents’ home. Regardless, her soon-to-be husband is a cop and can drive us over without us getting arrested.”
I came up the back way to Mercy’s home, jumping her fence and cutting through her backyard. The for-sale sign had been removed from the yard. The sale was pending. The house was cloaked in darkness, but dim light flickered behind the curtains.
“Someone’s home,” I said and snuck around the side of the house and up onto the porch while checking up and down the street. The nosy neighbors weren’t outside. No one was.
I could hear the voices just on the other side of the door.
“Mercy, think about this,” I heard Clark Weller say. “There’s a curfew. You leave and you're breaking the law.”
“Okay,” she said. “There’s money in my cookie jar for you to bail me out of jail. I refuse to wait another day. Honor could be in serious trouble. I need to get to her.” Mercy growled in a way I’d never heard before.
I’d lifted my hand to knock as the door flew open. Mercy was standing on the threshold, wearing a rain jacket, and her fiancé was behind her with an umbrella in hand.
“Thank God.” Mercy’s relief came out in a rush even as her gaze landed on Hugh and the bandage sticking out from beneath his wet shirt.
“Get in here before you get arrested,” Mercy demanded, opening the door wider, then stepping aside to allow us to pass.
Mercy’s fiancé, Clark Weller, wasn’t as welcoming with Hugh. He was the sheriff of a frozen little town in Colorado who had followed Mercy home in the hopes that she’d return with him. There was never any question that she wouldn’t. She’d fallen fast and hard for the guy.