Chapter 5 - The Safe in Lawrenceville
The impact showered the dashboard with microscopic glass dust, but the reinforced ballistic laminate held firm. Claire screamed, instinctively curling into the footwell, her arms clamped over her head just as she had done six years ago when the highway patrolman had knocked on their front door to deliver the worst news of her life.
Gabriel didn't flinch. He didn't even duck. With cold, mechanical precision, he slid out of the driver's seat, using the armored door as a shield.
Two rapid gunshots echoed through the alley—sharp, concussive blasts from Gabriel’s weapon. A sickening thud followed, then the high-pitched squeal of rubber as the silver sedan in the front lot violently reversed, hit a concrete bollard with an ear-splitting crunch, and sped away down Penn Avenue, its rear bumper dragging on the asphalt with a shower of orange sparks.
Silence returned to the alley, broken only by the steady drizzle of rain tapping against the shattered windshield.
Gabriel’s door opened wider. "Claire. Move."
His voice was urgent, devoid of the earlier polite distance. He reached into the footwell, his large hand wrapping around her wrist, hauling her out of the SUV in one smooth, powerful motion. Claire stumbled onto the wet gravel, her heels sinking into the mud, but Gabriel caught her by the waist, steadying her against his chest.
For a heartbeat, she was pressed against him, feeling the hard, unyielding wall of his torso and the furious, rhythmic thud of his heart beneath the drenched cotton of his shirt. He smelled of rain and gunpowder now.
"You're unhurt," he said, his eyes scanning her face, checking her shoulders, her arms.
"I'm fine," she panted, her voice trembling. "They had a rifle!"
"A deer rifle," Gabriel said dismissively, stepping between her and the street as he guided her toward the rear metal fire door of her family's shop. "Amateurs. Julian is scraping the bottom of the barrel because he knows my security net is closing around him. We have less than ten minutes before local police respond to the shots-fired call."
Claire pulled her master key from her pocket with shaking fingers, but Gabriel placed his palm over the lock. "Don't bother."
He stepped back and delivered a brutal, calculated front kick directly beside the deadbolt. The steel frame groaned, the strike plate tore free from the brick with a shower of mortar dust, and the door swung inward with a dull bang.
They stepped into the darkness of the print shop.
The familiar smells hit Claire instantly: mineral spirits, drying linseed oil, aged paper, and damp basement masonry. In the center of the concrete floor sat the massive, cast-iron bulk of the 1968 Heidelberg letterpress—her father's pride and joy. The monster machine weighed four tons, covered in black enamel and gleaming chrome levers.
"Where would he keep something he never wanted anyone to find?" Gabriel asked, keeping his weapon low at his side as he swept the shadows with a small tactical flashlight.
Claire looked around the cluttered room. Shelves filled with paper reams, boxes of envelopes, cans of magenta and cyan inks, stacks of church bulletins and funeral cards.
"Everyone thinks printers hide things behind false walls or under floorboards," Claire murmured, walking slowly toward the giant machine. Her hand reached out, touching the cold cast iron of the press. "My dad used to say the safest place to hide a secret is inside a machine that only one man knows how to take apart."
She knelt beside the main ink delivery roller. Beneath the heavy steel cylinder was an oil reservoir, designed to lubricate the internal drive gears. Claire reached into her pocket, pulled out a long, narrow brass hex key from her key ring, and fitted it into an obscure bolt hidden behind the machine's primary flywheel.
She turned the bolt clockwise three full rotations.
A tiny, spring-loaded panel popped open inside the dry cavity of the press frame, right above the oil basin.
Inside sat a thick, green canvas-bound ledger, wrapped tightly in oilcloth to protect it from moisture.
May you like
Claire pulled it out. Her hands were covered in black grease, but she didn't care. She unwrapped the cloth. On the front cover, written in her father's neat, draftsman-like cursive, were three words:
THE MERCER ACCOUNTS.
