“Yes.”
Bailey noticed the disappointment the woman tried to hide when she looked at Alaric.
She was perhaps thirty, with dark hair cut at her jaw and a narrow scar along her chin. Unlike the others, she wore no formal jacket, only a gray sweater and black trousers.
“Who is she?” Bailey asked.
The woman looked directly at her.
“Mara Vane.”
Stefan’s sister, Bailey guessed.
Mara nodded toward Alaric. “The shooter entered through the old kitchen tunnel. He had a map.”
Alaric’s face remained blank.
“Where did he get it?” Stefan asked.
“He says it was sent anonymously.”
“Convenient.”
“He also had this.”
Mara crossed the room and placed a small brass key on the table.
Bailey recognized the crest stamped into its handle.
Smith Shipping.
Alaric picked it up.
“That key belongs to the archive room.”
“No,” Bailey said.
She remembered the archive room at the company’s headquarters. It had been locked for as long as she could remember. Once, when she was twelve, she had asked what was inside.
Her father had told her it contained records ruined by a flood.
“This isn’t the archive key,” Bailey continued. “The archive key is longer.”
Alaric looked at her sharply.
“How would you know?”
“I saw you use it.”
“When?”
“The week before Mother died.”
The memory arrived intact.
Her father standing in the upstairs corridor after midnight. A brass key in his hand. Her mother waiting near the archive door, wearing a dark green coat.
They had been arguing quietly.
Bailey had watched from the stairwell.
At the time, she had thought they were planning a trip.
Now she remembered her mother’s face.
Not angry.
Afraid.
Mara leaned closer to the key.
“Then what does this open?”
Bailey took it from her father.
The crest was worn at the edges, as though it had been handled often.
“There used to be private boxes at the harbor office,” she said. “Before the renovation. Grandfather gave one to every family member.”
Alaric’s gaze dropped.
Bailey noticed.
“You still have yours.”
“No.”
“You looked at the key.”
“I looked because you were speaking.”
“You looked because you recognized it.”
Stefan watched them both.
“Where are the boxes now?”
Bailey thought back.
After the harbor renovation, the private offices had been closed. Documents were moved to the headquarters archive. Furniture was auctioned. The building itself had remained empty for years because Alaric refused to sell it.
“The old customs house,” she said.
Alaric’s head lifted.
Bailey felt certain.
“The boxes are still there.”
“That building is condemned,” he said.
“Then why did you renew the private security contract last year?”
The question escaped before she considered how she knew.
Her father stared at her.
Bailey had seen the payment while reviewing the maintenance invoices. At the time, it had seemed like another example of careless accounting.
Now it looked like something else.
Mara smiled faintly.
“I think I like her.”
Stefan did not smile.
“If the shooter carried a key to that building, someone wanted us to find it.”
“Or wanted the key returned,” Bailey said.
Stefan looked at her with new attention.
She turned the brass key between her fingers.
“The man fired once, wounded a guard, and stayed inside the house long enough to be caught. That doesn’t sound like someone sent to kill us.”