Chapter 5 - Tomorrow's Photograph.
Claire stared at the impossible date until the numbers blurred.
Owen lived in Denver and had not visited New York for six months.
The photograph showed him wearing a gray coat she recognized, walking beneath the bank's bronze clock.
The clock read 12:17 a.m.
Tomorrow had not happened, yet someone wanted Claire to believe it already had.
Evelyn claimed she knew nothing about the picture.
Adrian watched Claire with deliberate curiosity.
She understood that the photograph was not evidence.
It was an instruction.
Someone expected Owen to enter the bank at 12:17 the following night.
Claire left the tower under the examiners' supervision and called Owen from a borrowed phone.
He answered from an airport lounge.
He had received a message saying Claire needed him urgently in New York.
The message included her private childhood nickname for him.
His flight was scheduled to land at eleven.
Claire ordered him to cancel the trip.
Owen said a courier had already delivered a sealed package that could only be opened inside Ashford Bank.
He believed the package came from their father before his death.
Claire knew their father had left no such instruction.
She told Owen to surrender the package to airport security without opening it.
The line produced a sudden burst of static.
When Owen spoke again, his voice sounded distant.
He said a woman in a gold coat was watching him from across the lounge.
Claire thought of Evelyn's glittering top.
Owen moved toward an airline desk.
The call ended.
Claire immediately contacted Denver airport police and gave them his description.
Naomi Pierce observed the call without interrupting.
Claire asked whether federal authorities had arranged the package as part of their investigation.
Naomi denied it.
For the first time, the examiner appeared concerned rather than suspicious.
Claire showed her the photograph.
Naomi examined its edges and found a faint indentation from another page.
They shaded the surface with pencil from the library desk.
Three words appeared in reverse.
BLUE ROOM LEDGER.
Claire recognized the reference.
Her father had maintained a private records room behind the old Ashford Bank vault.
Only family members knew it existed.
The room had been sealed after his death because a water leak supposedly destroyed its contents.
Adrian had supervised the repairs.
Claire asked Naomi for permission to inspect it.
Naomi refused to let her enter bank property during the review.
Claire proposed that Naomi accompany her and control every step.
Before Naomi could answer, she received an urgent message.
Owen had disappeared from the airport lounge.
His unopened package remained on a chair.
Security footage showed the woman in the gold coat following him into a restricted corridor.
Claire demanded to see the image.
The woman was not Evelyn.
She was Rebecca Shaw, Claire's missing attorney.
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And Rebecca was wearing Claire's silver heart necklace.
THE BLACKWOOD ACCOUNTS
