Chapter 10 - The Safe’s Secret
The brass hinges were old, held in place by thick slotted screws that had been painted over a dozen times.
Working in near darkness, using the utility blade’s flat edge as an improvised screwdriver, I scraped away the layers of dried enamel. My knuckles bled as the steel slipped against the metal, but I didn't stop. With every turn of the screw, the wood groaned softly.
Forty-five minutes later, the top hinge came loose. Twenty minutes after that, the bottom pin slid free.
I eased the heavy door inward, holding it by the brass handle so it wouldn't crash against the floorboards.
The third-floor hallway was pitch black and silent. Downstairs, the grandfather clock chimed two-thirty in the morning. The entire house was asleep—or Brad and Patricia were downstairs in the library drinking themselves into a rage.
I moved like a shadow down the service stairs, barefoot, keeping my weight against the outer edge of each step to prevent the old timbers from creaking.
I didn't head for the front door. Not yet.
If I ran out into the rainy Iowa night without evidence, it would be my word against the Sterling dynasty. Brad would call the county sheriff, claim his mentally unstable wife had broken out, and they’d hunt me down on the back roads within an hour.
I needed the kill shot.
I slipped into Brad’s private study on the second floor. The air smelled of stale cigars and whiskey. Behind a heavy oil painting of his great-grandfather sat the wall safe Kelsey had mentioned during our brief whisper in the cellar.
*“Mother keeps the duplicate combination in the bottom of the grandfather clock in the foyer,”* Kelsey had told me.
I had checked the clock on my way past. The combination was written on the back of an old church program: *14 - 32 - 08 - 66.*
My fingers were trembling as I dialed the brass wheel. *Left to 14. Right to 32. Left to 08. Right to 66.*
The heavy steel handle clicked and turned.
I pulled the safe door open. Inside were stacks of cash, Brad’s passport, and three thick manila dossiers.
I pulled out the dossiers and flipped them open under the dim glow of the desk lamp.
What I found was far worse than Clara Evans’ forged medical papers.
The first file contained the complete municipal audit records for the Cedar Falls Riverfront Development Project. Brad hadn't just embezzled money to pay off his gambling debts—he had set up three dummy subcontracting corporations in my maiden name, **Megan Carter Logistics LLC**. Over six hundred thousand dollars of stolen city infrastructure funds had been laundered through accounts bearing my forged signature.
He wasn't just planning to have me committed.
If the state auditors closed in, I was designed to be the scapegoat. The ignorant farm girl who married a city official and manipulated his accounts to embezzle public funds.
Suddenly, the study door clicked open.
I froze, clutching the files to my chest, my utility knife ready in my right hand.
The door swung wide, revealing Kelsey standing in her pajamas. Her eyes went wide as she saw me standing by the open safe.
She didn't scream.
Instead, she stepped inside, closed the door behind her, and locked it.
“Mother just went to bed,” Kelsey whispered, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “Brad passed out on the sofa with a bottle of Scotch. The police were at the front gates an hour ago—the media is calling the chief of police about the recording you played at the gala.”
“Kelsey, look at this,” I whispered, shoving the municipal audit into her hands. “He didn't just target me for the trust fund. He set me up for twenty years in federal prison for city embezzlement.”
Kelsey’s hands shook as she read the documents. Tears spilled down her cheeks, but this time, her face didn't look terrified.
It looked sickened. Disgusted. Transformed.
“He did the same thing with my college trust fund,” Kelsey said, her voice dropping into a cold, trembling rage. “He drained it to cover his markers in Davenport. Mother knew. She helped him cover it up.”
She looked up at me, her jaw setting into a hard line.
“My car is parked behind the greenhouse,” Kelsey said, pulling a set of keys from her pocket and pressing them into my hand. “The security gate code is 9114. Take the files, Megan. Don't go to the local Cedar Falls precinct—the chief is Brad’s godfather. Drive straight to the Federal Bureau of Investigation field office in Des Moines.”
“Come with me, Kelsey,” I urged, gripping her arm. “If you stay here, they’ll destroy you.”
May you like
“No,” Kelsey said, a bitter, fierce smile touching her lips. “Someone has to be here to unlock the front doors when the feds arrive with the warrants. Go. Now!”
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