Chapter 6 - The Secret in the Floorboards
The afternoon sky had turned a dark, bruised purple as a sudden autumn thunderstorm rolled over the city. Heavy rain beat against the windshield of my F-150 as I drove back toward my neighborhood, my jaw clenched so tight my teeth ached.
Samuel was dead. Sophia was fighting for her life in an ICU guarded by corrupt cops. And I was driving back to the house where the attack happened, knowing that Vance's men were likely right behind me.
I parked two blocks away this time, turning off the lights and coasting into a quiet alleyway beneath a row of weeping willow trees.
I moved through the heavy rain on foot, jumping fences, staying in the shadows between houses, until I reached the back garden of my property.
The house was completely dark.
I drew my Glock, wiped the rain from my eyes, and slipped through the unlocked back door.
The house was quiet, save for the sound of the rain drumming against the roof. The smell of bleach was fading, replaced by the cold, damp air entering through the open windows.
I moved quickly down the hallway toward my small home study at the front of the house.
It was a quiet room filled with built-in bookshelves, an old mahogany desk, and a worn leather armchair where Sophia liked to read while I was overseas.
I knelt down beside the desk, pulling back the heavy Persian rug that covered the center of the hardwood floor.
Samuel had said under the floorboards in your study.
I used my pocket knife to inspect the seams between the oak planks. Near the base of the left bookshelf, three boards looked slightly misaligned. The polyurethane coating along the edges was cracked, as if a sharp tool had been used to pry them up recently.
I jammed the blade of my knife into the seam, leveraging the middle board upward. It gave way with a soft creak.
Beneath the floorboard was a shallow joist space filled with dust and old insulation.
And resting inside was a thick, blue waterproof folder.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I pulled it out and opened the metal clasp.
Inside were forty pages of bank statements, offshore wire transfers, and forged shipping manifests dated over the last three years.
The wire transfers—totalling over eight million dollars—were signed by Judge Richard Carter, routing funds from the Port Authority modernization fund into a shell company registered in the Cayman Islands.
But the final document was the death sentence.
It was a handwritten letter in Sophia’s neat, legible handwriting, dated four days ago.
To whoever finds this:
My father is not the man I thought he was. For three years, he has been using the judicial oversight committee to launder money for a cartel shipping network operating out of Pier 42. When I confronted him at his office, he threatened to ruin Ethan’s military career using his political connections.
Tonight, he is coming to our house to demand I hand over these files. If anything happens to me, Detective Vance is working for him. Do not trust the police. Do not trust my father.
Ethan, if you are reading this... I'm so sorry I couldn't protect our home. I love you.
A tear cut through the grime on my cheek, mixing with the rain dripping from my hair.
She hadn't just been attacked. She had stood her ground against a powerful, dangerous network to protect me, to protect our life, to expose her own father's rot.
CLICK.
The sound of a gun cocking came from the doorway behind me.
"Drop the folder, Ethan," a voice commanded.
I didn't turn around immediately. I carefully set the blue folder on the desk, keeping my hands visible, before slowly turning to face the threshold.
Standing in the doorway, holding a silenced 9mm pistol pointed directly at my chest, was Richard Carter.
May you like
He wasn't wearing his tailored judge's coat anymore. He was wearing a wet raincoat, his grey hair plastered to his forehead by the storm, his eyes wild and unstable.
"I didn't want it to come to this, son," Richard said, his voice trembling slightly, though his gun hand remained steady. "I really didn't."
