Chapter 4 - The Fire Above the Boardroom
The directors rushed toward the emergency stairs.
Jonathan grabbed the brass key.
I ran to the office where Daniel was eating.
He stood beside the window holding the half-finished sandwich.
“Mom?”
“We’re leaving.”
Smoke thickened in the hallway.
The fire had started two floors above us.
Exactly where my father’s private archive was located.
Marcus appeared through the haze.
He was moving toward the restricted elevator instead of the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I shouted.
“To secure company records.”
“The fire department will handle it.”
He ignored me.
Jonathan blocked the elevator.
Marcus shoved him.
“You don’t understand what is up there.”
“I understand you transferred forty-eight million dollars this morning.”
Marcus looked at me.
“I transferred it to protect the company.”
“From whom?”
“From you.”
Daniel coughed.
I picked him up.
Whatever Marcus was hiding could wait.
My son could not.
We reached the stairwell with the other employees.
Fire crews moved upward while hundreds of people evacuated down.
Outside, cameras were already gathering.
Someone had leaked news of the emergency board meeting.
Marcus emerged ten minutes later carrying a black metal case.
His suit was streaked with ash.
A firefighter shouted at him for reentering a restricted area.
He ignored the warning.
Then he saw me watching the case.
His grip tightened.
“What did you take?” I asked.
“Nothing that belongs to you.”
Jonathan approached with two security officers.
“The archive belongs to the trust.”
Marcus handed the case to one of his attorneys.
“Take this to the car.”
I stepped into the attorney’s path.
“Open it.”
He looked at Marcus.
Marcus said, “Move.”
The security officers hesitated.
He had been their chairman that morning.
I held up the board’s suspension order.
“You answer to Carter Group, not Marcus personally.”
One officer took the case.
Marcus lunged forward.
“Do not open that.”
Jonathan entered the brass key.
The lock turned.
Inside were hundreds of old paper records, a small cassette recorder, and a blue hospital bracelet.
The bracelet carried a newborn’s name.
BABY BOY CARTER.
Date of birth: seven years ago.
Daniel’s birthday.
I stared at it.
Marcus reached for the bracelet.
I pulled it away.
“Why was this in Dad’s archive?”
“Because he collected meaningless junk.”
The cassette recorder activated when Jonathan lifted it.
My father’s voice filled the air.
“If Sarah is hearing this, Marcus has already tried to destroy the archive.”
Marcus went completely still.
Employees, directors, firefighters, and reporters stood around us.
My father continued.
“The boy Sarah calls Daniel is not only my grandson.”
I looked toward my son.
He was holding Linda Cho’s hand near the ambulance.
The recording crackled.
“He is the legal heir to the forty-eight-million-dollar account Marcus has spent seven years trying to steal.”
The reporters moved closer.
Marcus’s attorney whispered urgently.
My father’s voice continued.
“Marcus knows who Daniel’s father is.”
My blood turned cold.
I faced my brother.
“You told me Daniel’s father died.”
Marcus said nothing.
“You showed me a death certificate.”
His eyes shifted toward the waiting car.
The black metal case contained one final envelope.
May you like
On the front, my father had written:
THE MAN MARCUS BURIED WITHOUT A BODY.
