Chapter 6 - The Book of Names
"What key, Sarah?" I asked, reaching out with a trembling hand to cover her cold, frail fingers.
Sarah Lin didn't look at me. Her eyes remained locked on her own reflection in the wet glass of the window, but her index finger lifted, pointing toward a small leather-bound bible sitting on the lowest shelf of her nightstand.
I reached down, pulled the thick, dust-covered book from the shelf, and opened it across my knees.
The pages had been hollowed out from the center using a sharp blade.
Inside the square cavity lay three objects:
A small, brass skeleton key stamped with the number 114.
A micro-cassette tape labeled VANCE LOGISTICS - PRIVATE ACCOUNT AUDIT 2022.
A faded photograph of my late father, standing inside his art restoration workshop alongside Arthur Vance and a third man I didn't recognize.
Agent Reyes stepped into the room, her tactical light shining down onto the hollowed book. "That key... it belongs to a safety deposit locker at the Old National Bank on La Salle Street."
"Look at the picture," I said, holding the faded photograph up to the light. "That’s my father. He died four years ago... three weeks before Sarah was admitted to this facility."
Agent Reyes took the photograph, using her phone to scan the faces into her federal database. "The third man in that photo is Dr. Aris Thorne—the physician who signed your forged psychiatric hold order yesterday."
"They killed him," I whispered, the realization striking me like a physical blow that left me breathless. "My father didn't die of a heart attack. He found out what Julian was doing to Sarah’s trust, and he tried to stop him."
From the doorway, Maya let out a soft whimper. She had walked into the room, her small yellow blanket trailing behind her on the carpet, staring at the woman sitting in the armchair.
Sarah Lin slowly turned her head. For the first time in four years, her dull, vacant eyes seemed to focus, locking onto Maya’s small face.
"Maya..." Sarah whispered, a single tear cutting a clean line through the dust on her cheek. "You... you have... your grandfather's... hands..."
I stared at Sarah in absolute shock. "You know who she is?"
"He... he brought her here..." Sarah gasped, her chest heaving as if the effort of speaking was tearing her lungs apart. "Every... month... He told me... she was... my daughter... He told me... I was... dead..."
My stomach turned violently. Julian hadn't just kept Sarah sedated; he had used my child as a psychological weapon to break whatever remained of his first wife's sanity, convincing her that her life was an illusion and that her daughter belonged to another woman.
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"Agent Reyes," I stood up, my hand closing tightly around the brass key stamped 114. "Where is the Old National Bank?"
"It’s four blocks from here," Reyes said, her jaw tight with a lethal, professional fury. "And the federal search warrant for Locker 114 was just approved by a magistrate ten minutes ago."
