Chapter 3 - Locker 117.
The church was closed when they arrived.
Gabriel knew the priest, which was the only reason the side door opened after midnight.
Father Elias took one look at Rory and asked no unnecessary questions.
"The lockers are downstairs."
Sterling remained in the vehicle with two guards.
Gabriel did not trust himself to keep looking at him.
The basement smelled of old stone, candle wax, and damp winter coats.
Rory counted the locker numbers under her breath.
"One fifteen."
"One sixteen."
Then she stopped.
"One seventeen."
The key card from the motel slid into a narrow slot beside the lock.
A green light appeared.
Gabriel opened the metal door.
Inside sat a grocery bag, a cheap prepaid phone, and a thick envelope marked G.V.
Gabriel did not touch the envelope immediately.
Rory did.
"Mommy said those are your letters."
"My letters?"
She handed it to him.
Inside were photocopies of company invoices, payroll sheets, and transfer requests bearing Gabriel's electronic signature.
The signatures were perfect.
Too perfect.
Gabriel knew he had never approved the transfers.
Mateo scanned the pages.
"Seven shell companies."
Gabriel turned another page.
The amounts totaled more than twelve million dollars.
Every authorization traced back to Sterling's division.
Rory pointed at a familiar number.
"There's twenty-three."
The invoice ended in 23.
Gabriel looked at her notepad.
The child had copied the last two digits of documents she had seen Sterling take from her mother.
The stars marked hunger.
The numbers marked theft.
Together they formed a timeline.
Gabriel picked up the prepaid phone.
There was one saved video.
He pressed play.
A woman appeared on the screen.
She was thin, dark-haired, and terrified.
Rory whispered, "Mommy."
The woman spoke directly into the camera.
"Mr. Voss, my name is Lena Hale."
Gabriel froze.
He knew the name.
Six years earlier, a young records clerk named Lena Hale had vanished from his company after being accused of stealing confidential files.
Sterling had handled the investigation.
Lena continued.
"If you're seeing this, Sterling knows I found the transfer chain."
She held up documents.
"He has been using families in debt as fake contractors."
Gabriel's stomach turned.
"He pays them on paper, takes the money back in cash, and threatens them if they speak."
Rory watched without blinking.
"He told me you ordered it."
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Lena's voice shook.
"I believed him for years."
The video ended abruptly after a sound outside the motel room.
Rory reached for the phone.
"There was more."
Gabriel checked the storage.
A second video had been deleted.
Mateo plugged the phone into a small forensic adapter from his security kit.
"Maybe recoverable."
Father Elias quietly moved Rory toward a chair and brought her hot chocolate.
Gabriel opened the grocery bag.
It contained canned soup, cereal bars, and a folded receipt.
The purchase had been made that afternoon.
Lena had planned to feed Rory that night.
Gabriel stared at the receipt longer than necessary.
Then Mateo said his name.
"Gabriel."
He had recovered a fragment of the deleted video.
Lena appeared again.
This time she was crying.
"If Sterling finds me, don't trust the police report."
A man's voice sounded behind her.
The audio was faint but clear enough.
"You should have stayed dead, Lena."
Gabriel recognized the voice.
May you like
It did not belong to Sterling.
It belonged to Daniel Cross, Gabriel's own chief of security.
