We landed in Chicago just after nine.
The city was cold and wet, with rain streaking the windows of the car as we drove toward the address Claire had provided.
Sienna sat beside me.
Helena sat in front.
Neither of us knew what we would find.
The building was older than I expected.
Six floors of dark stone and narrow windows, surrounded by newer towers that made it look almost forgotten.
Claire met us in the lobby.
She was thirty-one, small, pale, and visibly nervous.
“You came.”
Helena nodded.
“Tell us exactly what you know.”
Claire looked at Sienna.
“I was afraid he'd find out.”
“He already knows I know,” Sienna said.
Claire swallowed.
“That doesn't mean he knows where you are.”
She handed Helena an access card.
“Garrick rented the office through a holding company.”
“What company?”
“Briar Consulting.”
Helena frowned.
“That company doesn't appear in the Ashford records.”
“It isn't supposed to.”
Claire looked toward the elevators.
“He used it to keep documents outside the company's systems.”
We went upstairs.
The office was dark.
Claire unlocked the door.
The first room contained almost nothing.
A desk.
Two chairs.
A printer.
No personal photographs.
No company logo.
It looked unused.
Claire walked to the back wall.
“There.”
A panel opened.
Behind it was a storage room.
Shelves filled the space.
Boxes were labeled by year.
2019.
2020.
2021.
2022.
2023.
2024.
2025.
Sienna stared.
“Those are all the years.”
“Yes,” Claire said.
Helena put on gloves.
She opened the first box.
Bank statements.
Invoices.
Contracts.
Correspondence.
Everything Garrick had supposedly deleted.
The original records.
I felt a strange calm settle over me.
This was why Daniel had always insisted on documentation.
People could deny conversations.
They could manipulate memories.
Paper was harder to intimidate.
Helena opened another box.
“This is the North Coast incorporation file.”
She scanned it.
Then stopped.
“Look.”
The registered agent was a law firm.
The beneficial owner was hidden behind a trust.
“What trust?”
Helena traced the chain.
Her face became serious.
“An offshore trust.”
Sienna looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means we need more records.”
Helena opened another folder.
Inside were payment schedules.
The names were coded.
But the bank account numbers were visible.
She compared them with the financial statements from Ashford Industries.
One account appeared repeatedly.
“That's Victor Shaw's account.”
Another appeared.
“That's Miriam.”
Then another.
She stared.
“This one belongs to Colin.”
Sienna looked shocked.
“Garrick's brother?”
“Yes.”
Claire spoke quietly.
“He didn't know what it was for.”
Helena looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because he asked Garrick about it.”
“What happened?”
“Garrick told him it was part of an investment.”
Claire looked down.
“Colin believed him.”
We found more.
Payments to consultants.
Payments to shell companies.
Payments to politicians.
Helena stopped at that page.
She read the names carefully.
“These are not company payments.”
“Who are they?”
“Lobbyists.”
She looked at me.
“Not necessarily illegal. But none were disclosed.”
We documented everything.
Then Sienna found a box marked with a handwritten note.
PERSONAL — DO NOT MOVE.
She opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Not financial records.
Photographs of people entering the Ashford offices.
One photograph showed Helena.
Another showed Claire.
Another showed me.
I stared at my own photograph.
It had been taken from across the street.
“When?”
Claire looked.
“About four months ago.”
Sienna stepped closer.
“Why would he photograph Mom?”
Helena answered.
“To monitor who was asking questions.”
The next photograph was of Daniel's old attorney.
The date was six years after Daniel's death.
He had been meeting someone outside a courthouse.
I recognized the person beside him.
Miriam.
I felt the room become very quiet.
“What was she doing with him?”
Helena turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting on the back.
ASK ABOUT THE ESTATE BLOCK.
My stomach tightened.
The estate block.
The twelve percent Daniel had deliberately kept outside the family trust.
I understood.
Miriam had been trying to locate it.
And she had known about it long before the board meeting.
She had not discovered the structure recently.
She had been trying to break it for years.
We found another folder.
This one contained emails between Miriam and an attorney.
One sentence stood out.
If the estate block can be acquired, the trust becomes irrelevant.
I looked at Helena.
“They knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
Sienna sat down.
“This wasn't about Garrick becoming COO.”
“No,” I said.
“It was about control.”
A sudden noise came from the hallway.
Everyone froze.
Footsteps.
Claire whispered, “Someone's here.”
Helena closed the box.
Raymond had not traveled with us, but we had a private security officer assigned by the board.
He moved toward the door.
The footsteps stopped.
Then a key entered the lock.
The security officer opened the door before the person could.
A man stood outside.
He was in his fifties.
He looked at Claire.
Then at us.
“Who are you?”
Helena stepped forward.
“Who are you?”
He smiled.
“I'm the building manager.”
Claire shook her head.
“No, you're not.”
His smile disappeared.
“You've made a mistake.”
The security officer asked for identification.
The man hesitated.
Then turned.
He ran.
The officer chased him down the corridor.
We heard a door slam.
Then silence.
Sienna stared at me.
“What just happened?”
“I don't know.”
But I had a good idea.
Someone knew we were here.
We secured the office.
The building manager confirmed the man had never worked there.
We gave his description to local police.
Then Helena found something else.
A travel itinerary.
Garrick had a flight scheduled for that evening.
Chicago.
I looked at the time.
He wasn't supposed to be released from police supervision yet.
Yet the itinerary showed he had planned to come here.
Sienna's voice was quiet.
“He knew.”
“He knew about this office.”
“Yes.”
“And he knew we might find it.”
She nodded.
The implications were immediate.
The second office wasn't simply a hidden archive.
It was part of a contingency plan.
If the company investigation reached him, Garrick had intended to leave.
We searched the remaining files.
Near midnight, Helena found a document labeled EXIT.
It contained a list of assets.
Cash.
Property.
Accounts.
Passports.
And one final item.
A private aircraft.
Sienna stared at the page.
“He was going to disappear.”
“Not yet,” I said.
Helena looked at me.
“What do you mean?”
I pointed to the date.
The document had been prepared two weeks earlier.
Before the Sunday dinner.
Before the injury.
Before the board knew anything.
Garrick had already anticipated that something could go wrong.
He had planned an exit.
But the final page was missing.
The last section had been removed from the folder.
We searched every box.
Nothing.
Then Claire remembered something.
“There is another room.”
“Where?”
“Basement.”
She looked frightened.
“He never let me go down there.”
We stared at one another.
The hidden office suddenly seemed much larger than we had thought.
And whatever Garrick had kept below the building, he had considered important enough to hide from everyone.
Including his own assistant.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Beneath the Office, We Found the Missing Piece of Daniel’s Safeguard—and Evidence That Someone Had Been Preparing for This Night
The Sling on My Daughter’s Arm Told Me More Than Her Carefully Practiced Smile Ever Could at That Family Table
Part 6 of 12
