Chapter 58: My Brother Knew

"Six minutes ago?" Victor repeated.

Arthur nodded grimly.

"Whoever accessed Locker E-19 used a physical key."

"The security system registered the lock opening."

"Can you trace the location?" Damien asked.

"Union Central Station."

"Platform storage level."

"Twenty-three minutes away if traffic cooperates."

Victor grabbed his coat.

"We're leaving now."

"Rose, stay with Eleanor."

"No one enters or leaves this estate without my approval."

Rose nodded immediately.

"Yes, sir."

The city streets were nearly empty after midnight.

Rain continued to hammer against the windscreen.

Arthur drove.

Victor sat beside him.

Damien ignored the pain in his shoulder.

I sat in the back, holding the tiny silver key Nathaniel had somehow placed into Daniel Cross's hands years earlier.

"My brother planned everything," I whispered.

Victor glanced at me through the mirror.

"He planned for failure."

"People like Nathaniel always do."

"He knew evidence disappears."

"People disappear."

"So he created backups."

"Layer after layer."

"He knew he wouldn't survive," I said.

Nobody answered.

Because nobody could deny it anymore.

Twenty minutes later the car stopped beneath Union Central Station.

Arthur checked his tablet.

"Locker section E is underground."

"Public access twenty-four hours."

"If someone came here six minutes before the alert... they could already be gone."

"Unless they stayed to retrieve something," Victor replied.

The storage corridor stretched beneath the station.

Hundreds of steel lockers lined both walls.

Most travellers had already gone home.

The place was almost silent.

"E-19," Arthur whispered.

Halfway down the corridor.

The locker door stood slightly open.

Victor immediately raised a hand.

"Nobody touch it."

Arthur carefully scanned the handle.

"Fresh fingerprints."

"No explosive residue."

"Looks clean."

Victor slowly pulled the locker open.

It was empty.

Almost.

Only a single cassette recorder rested inside.

"A tape recorder?" Damien frowned.

"Old technology," Arthur muttered.

"Impossible to hack remotely."

Victor pressed the play button.

The tape hissed.

Then Nathaniel's voice filled the corridor.

"If you're hearing this..."

"Then Daniel didn't fail me."

"He found Vivian."

My chest tightened.

Even after all these years, hearing my brother's voice never became easier.

"Viv..."

"If you're standing here, it means everything has already fallen apart."

"I'm sorry."

"I wanted to protect you."

"Instead, I dragged you into it."

The tape crackled.

"Listen carefully."

"The crash wasn't where the truth began."

"It only prevented me from finishing."

"The truth began the day Richard Ashford walked into St. Agnes Hospital."

"He didn't go there as a father."

"He went there as a buyer."

Damien closed his eyes.

"No..."

Nathaniel continued.

"I spent eighteen months following financial records."

"Hospital payments."

"Private trusts."

"Missing birth certificates."

"Every trail led back to one account."

"The Hawthorne Project wasn't about money."

"It was about identities."

Victor stared silently at the recorder.

"Nathaniel knew," he whispered.

"He knew everything."

"Not everything," the tape continued, as though answering him.

"There was one thing I couldn't prove."

"Until Daniel found the witness."

The recording paused.

Then Nathaniel spoke more softly.

"Viv... if you're listening... remember what you asked me after Mother's funeral?"

My eyes filled with tears.

I remembered.

"You asked why good people always lose."

"I told you they don't."

"They just take longer to win."

I covered my mouth.

Victor looked away respectfully.

"There's one final envelope," Nathaniel said.

"Not here."

"I moved it after someone searched my apartment."

"Only you can recognise where it is."

"Because you made it."

"Not as evidence."

"As a birthday gift."

I frowned.

"A birthday gift?"

Then it hit me.

The wooden music box.

I had handcrafted it for Nathaniel's twenty-eighth birthday.

A jewellery box lined with blue velvet.

"The music box," I whispered.

"Exactly," Nathaniel's recorded voice replied.

"If you remembered... then you're already ahead of them."

"Inside the false bottom is everything I couldn't tell anyone."

"Names."

"Dates."

"Original contracts."

"And one photograph."

"Guard it with your life."

The tape clicked.

Everyone waited.

Then Nathaniel spoke one final time.

"Viv..."

"Whatever happens next..."

"None of this was your fault."

"You survived."

"Now finish what I started."

The tape ended.

Silence settled over the storage corridor.

Nobody moved.

Finally Damien spoke.

"Where's the music box?"

I slowly looked up.

"I gave it to him the week before he died."

"It never came back with his belongings."

Victor's face darkened.

"Then someone else has had it for three years."

Arthur suddenly bent down beside the locker.

"Wait."

"There's something taped underneath."

He peeled away a tiny folded receipt.

Not a receipt.

A baggage claim ticket.

Location: East Harbour Railway Depot.

Collection deadline:

Today.

Expiry time:

Two hours.

Victor looked at all of us.

"Nathaniel just gave us our next destination."

As they turned to leave, Arthur's phone buzzed again.

He looked at the message and went completely pale.

"Victor..."

"Someone just checked CCTV from this corridor."

"The person who emptied Locker E-19 left only four minutes before we arrived."

"Security captured one clear image."

"It wasn't Colette."

"It was Detective Samuel Briggs."