Chapter 51: The Market Street Vault

Lucas stood on the skybridge carpet with the text message still open. He pressed the dial icon and brought his cracked smartphone to his ear. Morgan answered before the first ring finished.

"How did someone walk out with a package addressed to you?" Lucas asked.

"Bonded couriers hate liability," Morgan said over the line. He could hear her walking fast on pavement. "A lawyer with a Delaware bar card and a partner ID from Pell and Garrity walked into the hold center. He showed the clerk the original shipping manifest. He claimed the reroute to my name was an act of corporate wire fraud. He threatened to sue FedEx and Diamond State for accessory to theft."

"And the clerk panicked," Lucas finished.

"The clerk handed the corporate mail to the registered corporate agent," Morgan corrected him. "It is the safest legal move. I am two blocks away from Market Street right now, but Lucas, I cannot breach a law firm. If he feeds that paper into a cross-cut shredder, we lose everything."

"He won’t shred it yet," Lucas said. "He has to report back to Cole."

He pulled Cole’s phone from his pocket. The screen lit up on a six-digit passcode keypad. He did not know Cole’s passcode, and he did not have the time to guess.

He opened the System interface in his mind.

[Device Encryption Detected.]

[Standard six-digit passcode active.]

He had three hundred Acquisition Points left. He opened the Skill Shop and found the cheapest thing that would work.

[Skill Unlocked: Digital Bypass (Level 1) - Cost: 200 AP]

[Description: Grants the Host an intuitive understanding of consumer operating systems, allowing for the rapid circumvention of standard lock screens and local encryption protocols.]

[Current AP Balance: 100]

Lucas confirmed the purchase.

He looked at the keypad and the smudges on the glass meant something now: four worn keys, one far greasier than the rest. He tried two combinations. The second one opened the phone.

Lucas tapped the secure messaging application. The most recent thread was an encrypted chat with a Wilmington number.

He opened it.

Package secured from King St, the fixer had texted three minutes ago. Returning to Market St office to incinerate.

Lucas scrolled up far enough to see how Cole wrote. Short. No greetings. Then he typed.

DO NOT INCINERATE. The auditor filed a preservation order with the state thirty minutes ago. If you burn it, you trigger a spoliation of evidence felony for you and your firm. Hold the document intact in your office safe. I am handling her.

He hit send.

He watched the screen. Three dots appeared as the Delaware fixer typed a reply.

Understood. Locking it in the main vault now. Call me when clear.

Not burned. Locked in a safe in a law firm that worked for Cole, which was only a little better.

"Morgan," Lucas said into his own phone. "He is not shredding it. He is locking it in the vault at Pell and Garrity. Wait in their lobby. I am going to make him open the safe and hand it to you."

"You have five minutes before I call the police," Morgan warned. She ended the call.

Lucas turned and walked off the skybridge.

He bypassed the library and headed straight for the executive elevators. He rode up to the top floor and walked down the pristine corridor toward Victoria’s suite. The heavy oak doors were closed.

He pushed them open and stepped inside.

Victoria Sterling stood behind her mahogany desk with her arms folded. The gray-haired security chief stood by the wet bar.

Nathan Cole sat in one of the leather guest chairs. There was a crease across the front of his gray suit from where Lucas had grabbed him. He did not look at Lucas when he came in.

"Nathan was just explaining that his sudden urge to use the stairwell was for his cardiovascular health," Victoria said. Her voice was ice.

Lucas walked across the room and placed Cole’s unlocked phone on the mahogany desk.

"His fixer intercepted the Delaware package," Lucas said. "The original Northshore document is sitting in a vault on Market Street in Wilmington."

Victoria picked up the phone and read the thread from the top. She did not say anything for a while.

Cole let out a bitter, humorless laugh.

"That phone was illegally accessed," Cole stated, leaning back in his chair. "You have no physical proof of a forgery. You have a digital scan and a text message. I will sit in this chair until my outside counsel arrives, Victoria. You cannot touch me."

"You think you need the paper to prove he built the shell," Lucas said to Victoria. "But you don’t. He used your signature on the formation documents."

Victoria looked up from the phone.

"I am the owner of Northshore," Victoria murmured.

"Exactly," Lucas said. He turned his attention back to Cole. "According to the state of Delaware, Victoria Sterling is the sole proprietor of Northshore Remediation Group. Which means Pell and Garrity is her registered agent. They work for her."

Cole froze. The smug defiance vanished from his face.

"Victoria does not need a subpoena to get her own company’s records," Lucas said. "She calls the managing partner at Pell and Garrity as the owner of Northshore, and then she calls the Wilmington police and reports that her registered agent took her original filing out of a courier hold center and locked it in a safe. Every lawyer in that building will be very interested in why."

Cole’s chest stopped moving.

"If she makes that call, your fixer goes to federal prison for stealing from Victoria Sterling," Lucas said softly. "How loyal is your fixer, Nathan? Will he take a felony theft charge for you? Will he stay quiet when the FBI asks him why he locked his own client’s paperwork in a safe?"

Victoria picked up her silver pen from the desk.

"You have thirty seconds, Nathan," Victoria stated. "Pick up your phone. Tell your man to hand the envelope to the woman waiting in his lobby. If you do not, I call the state police, and I let them tear your Wilmington operation down to the studs."

Cole looked at the phone on the desk, then at the security chief. He sat there for most of the thirty seconds.

He reached forward and picked up his phone. He dialed the Wilmington number. He put it on speakerphone and set it back on the desk.

"Pell," a cautious voice answered.

"It’s Cole," the lawyer said. "There is a woman in your lobby. Her name is Morgan Hale. Open the vault and hand her the Northshore envelope."

"Nathan, what is going on?" the fixer demanded.

"Just hand it to her," Cole snapped. "Do it now."

Cole ended the call. He pushed the phone across the desk toward Victoria. He did not ask for a negotiation. He knew he had lost.

"Take him down to the small conference room on two," Victoria told her security chief without taking her eyes off Cole. "Take his badge and his laptop. He can wait for his outside counsel there, and so can the police."

The security chief stepped forward. Cole stood up on his own, straightened his jacket, looked at Lucas once, and let himself be led out.

The oak doors clicked shut.

Victoria sat down in her leather chair. She pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose and held them there.

Then she looked up at Lucas.

"It is over," Victoria whispered. "He is gone."

"It is over when the paper is in our hands," Lucas corrected her gently.

His own phone vibrated in his pocket.

It was Morgan.

I have the wet-ink original, Morgan texted. The signature was lifted, just like you said. But there is a problem.

Lucas typed back immediately. What problem?

The three dots appeared. Morgan was typing.

There is a secondary authorization line on the incorporation document. Victoria is listed as the owner, but she is not the only one on the hook.

Cole did not just frame Victoria. The listed financial guarantor for Northshore Remediation Group is Camilla Verman.