Chapter 5 - The Stash in the Floorboards
Willa moved with lightning speed. She knew the layout of the old master suite; her nursing training had taught her to observe every detail of an environment within hours of arrival.
She knelt beside the heavy mahogany wardrobe near the corner of the room. Using the flat edge of a silver hairpin, she pried open a loose floorboard beneath the bottom drawer.
Inside lay a forgotten relic from Everett’s past—a heavy, cold-rolled steel lockbox bearing the old emblem of the Kane shipping empire.
Willa pulled it out. It required a key, but years of working in chaotic emergency rooms had taught her how to improvise. Taking a pair of surgical tweezers from her medical tray, she jammed them into the keyway, twisting with calculated, steady pressure until—click.
The lid popped open.
Inside weren't jewels or personal letters. It was a cache of hard, brutal leverage: digital flash drives, encrypted financial ledgers detailing Sterling’s embezzlement of company funds over the past three years, and a signed, notarized contingency will naming a neutral third-party executor in the event of foul play—a clause Sterling had spent eight months trying to suppress.
And beneath the documents sat a heavy, matte-black Sig Sauer P229 pistol, fully loaded with a suppressor screwed onto the barrel.
Willa picked up the weapon, feeling its cold, heavy weight in her hands. The safety was off.
May you like
She set the gun on the bedside table just as a heavy knock echoed against the outer door.
“Mrs. Kane?” Mr. Crowley’s cold, clipped voice cut through the wood. “Open the door. Dr. Whitfield and Mr. Vance are here to see you.”
