The old frame groaned but opened. I struggled to climb inside, inhaling the stale, dusty air. I turned on the flashlight on the phone Eleanor had given me.
The beam illuminated the painfully familiar setting. The old sofa covered with a faded blanket, the bookshelf, the round table. My heart ached with nostalgia.
The folder should be in my father’s study, in the bottom drawer of his desk. I walked into the small room. Everything was in its place.
I pulled out the heavy drawer. Inside, under a stack of old newspapers, lay the very thing. The blue folder.
With hands trembling from excitement, I opened it. Everything was there. The certificate of inheritance.
The privatization agreement. All with genuine seals and the signatures of my parents. I had won.
With these documents, Marcus was a fraudster. I was about to leave when, standing up, I awkwardly stumbled. My foot landed on a floorboard that gave a strange crunch and shifted out of place.
I froze. I shined the flashlight down. The floorboard was indeed unsecured.
I had never noticed it before. Curiosity won out. I dug my fingernails under the board and managed to lift it with effort.
Beneath it was a small indentation. A hiding place. And in the hiding place, a small, fireproof safe the size of a shoebox.
I didn’t know what to think. My father had never mentioned a safe. Maybe some old family valuables were inside.
The combination lock was simple. Four digits. I tried the year of my birth.
Click. My father’s birth year. Click.
My mother’s birth year. Click. Nothing.
Then I tried the year of their wedding. 1975. The safe opened.
I shined the light inside, expecting to see money or old jewelry. But inside? There was no money.
No gold. Inside lay two neat stacks of papers and two foreign passports. I picked up the passports.
One photo was Marcus. The other was Tiffany. The passports were new, issued just a month ago.
They were planning to run away. A chill ran down my spine. I put the passports aside and took the top stack of papers.
They were some kind of permits, licenses, technical plans. I didn’t really understand them, but the forms bore the seals of the City Architectural Commission, the documents related to the construction of a new shopping complex on the city outskirts, the very project Marcus was obsessed with. And then I got to the last sheet.
It was the main permit for the start of construction, and in the field for the responsible person, approving the project on behalf of the steel mill supplier, was a signature. I looked closely and went cold. It was my signature, or rather, my digital copy, the one I used at work for the electronic document system.
And the signature was certified with the seal of my department. The blood drained from my face and the papers shook in my hands. This was not just an escape plan.
This was a monstrous, devilish setup. Marcus wasn’t just stealing my apartment to pay off debts. He was pinning a massive, multimillion-dollar fraud scheme involving municipal land and construction contracts on me.
If this scam were exposed, all the threads would lead to me, to my signature on the main document. He would get the money, leave the country with his mistress, and I would be sent to prison for long years. Panic overwhelmed me.
This was scarier than losing the apartment. It was scarier than public humiliation. This was a threat to my freedom, my life.
I frantically grabbed the phone. I had to call someone, but who? Eleanor? To tell her I had stumbled into a situation even dirtier than before?
The police wouldn’t even listen. Only one name was in my head. The only relative who, it seemed, was still on my side.
The only one I could trust unconditionally. My fingers, disobedient, dialed the number. «Hello?» A sleepy voice answered the phone.
«Tia,» I whispered, choking with terror. «Tia, it’s me. I need help, immediately.»
A few seconds of silence hung on the other end, broken only by Tia’s sleepy breathing. «Naomi, my god, where are you? What happened? Your voice!»
«Tia, listen to me carefully,» I whispered, glancing at the dark windows of the old cabin as if someone might be listening. «I don’t have time to explain everything over the phone. We need to meet right now. It’s a matter of life and death.»
«What? What are you saying? Marcus said you… you left? That you had problems?» Confusion was audible in my sister’s voice.
«Marcus is lying,» I interrupted her, and steel rang in my voice. «He’s lying about everything. Tia, he set me up. He wants to send me to jail. Please meet me, tell no one, not mom, not friends, and especially not him.»
I heard my sister take a fearful breath. «Okay, of course. Where? In one hour?»
«At the all-night diner on Central Avenue. You know the one? It’s small. No one will be there now.» «Yes, I know it. I’ll be there. Naomi, hang in there.»
I hung up and slipped the phone into my pocket, grabbing the blue folder with the apartment documents and the second, terrifying stack of fraud papers. I climbed out the window, scrambled over the fence somehow, and almost ran to the spot where Darius was supposed to be waiting for me. We met in the semi-empty diner, which smelled of coffee and baked goods.
Tia was already sitting at the farthest table, fearfully watching the door. Seeing me, she jumped up. «Naomi, what’s wrong with you? You look awful.»
I sank into a chair and put both folders on the table. My hands were shaking. «Tia, I don’t have much time.»
I pushed the blue folder toward her. «These are the originals for the apartment. With these, I can prove the sale agreement is fake.»
Tia sighed with relief. «Thank goodness. Well, then, everything will be resolved. Let’s go to the lawyer.»
«No!» I cut her off. I opened the second folder and spread the sheets with the fake permits on the table. «This is the main problem. Look here.»
Tia leaned over the documents. She stared at the blueprints and seals for a long time, not understanding. «What is this?»
«It’s a scam, a major construction fraud, and this…» I poked my finger at the last page. «My digital signature. He stole it from my job. He pinned all of this on me.»
«He stole the apartment to get the money for his escape, and I’ll be left here to take the fall for everything. These are their foreign passports. They were getting ready.»
Tia looked at the signature, then at the passports, and her face slowly went white. She raised her eyes to mine, filled with horror. «Oh, my God, Naomi, but how? Why? He’s not… he’s not a monster.»
«He is a monster, Tia. A major one,» I answered hollowly. «And now I don’t know what to do.»
«If I give the apartment documents to the lawyers, he will immediately use this. I’ll be arrested the same day. I’m trapped.»
Tia sat silently, holding her head in her hands. It was clear she was thinking intensely. Suddenly, she looked up.
«There’s one person. My college classmate, remember I told you about him? Andrew. He’s a really good lawyer now.»
«Works in New York, runs his own firm. He’s not connected to our city, our prosecutors, or our judges. He doesn’t owe anyone here anything, and he owes me. I helped him out a lot with a case once.»
I looked at her hopefully. «Do you think he’ll help?» «I’m sure of it,» Tia whispered excitedly.
«Listen, here’s what we’ll do. You must not be seen with these papers. They are too dangerous.»
«Give them to me. I’ll call Andrew today. Explain everything to him.»
«Tomorrow morning, I’ll take the first train and deliver everything to him personally. He’ll start working right away, find connections to federal structures. They’ll put pressure on our local guys, and they won’t dare peep.»
«And while the documents are with him completely safe, Marcus won’t be able to get to them.» The plan seemed reasonable. Giving the documents to an independent lawyer who wasn’t connected to the city’s corruption network was the only right move.
And who could I trust with this more than my own sister? «Are you sure, Tia? Isn’t this dangerous for you?» «Don’t be ridiculous.»
Tia wiped a tear from her cheek. «You’re my sister. I won’t let that jerk destroy you. Give me everything.»
She quickly gathered all the dangerous documents into her large tote bag. She returned the blue folder with the apartment documents to me. «Keep this with you for now. Hold on to it. When Andrew gives the green light, then you use it.»
«The main thing now is to hide the evidence. Okay, go. I’ll call you as soon as I’m in New York.»
I felt an enormous, almost unbearable relief. A mountain had been lifted from my shoulders. For the first time in those awful days, I had real hope.
I hugged my sister tightly. «Thank you, Tia. Thank you, I owe you.»
«Everything will be fine,» Tia whispered, hugging me back. «We’ll handle this.» Returning to Eleanor’s estate, I was able to fall asleep for the first time in a long time.
I hid the folder with the apartment documents under the mattress and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. It felt as if the nightmare had finally begun to recede. I woke up to a sharp, demanding knock on the door, not the door to my room, but the front door of the house.
It was still early morning. I heard Estelle quickly walk down the hall. Then, low male voices sounded.
My heart pounded anxiously. I put on a robe and went out into the hallway. Three men were standing in the hall, two in police uniform and one in plain clothes with a stern, determined face.
Eleanor Vance was already there, in her usual severe robe, staring coldly at the uninvited guests. «What is the meaning of this?» she asked. The man in plain clothes showed an ID.
«Detective Major Hayes, Federal Anti-Corruption Task Force. We have a warrant to search this house and a warrant for the arrest of citizen Naomi Ann Sterling.» «On what grounds?» Eleanor inquired in an icy tone.
«On the grounds of an active criminal investigation into grand fraud and document forgery,» the detective replied and looked directly at me, frozen in the doorway of my room. «Naomi Sterling, you are under arrest.» Two officers stepped toward me.
One of them twisted my arms behind my back and snapped on the handcuffs. The cold metal burned my wrists. Everything happened as if in slow motion.
«We also have precise information on the location of the documents we are interested in,» the major continued. «They’re here.» He nodded to his men and they, ignoring Eleanor, headed straight for the guest room.
A minute later, one of them came out, holding the blue folder, the very one with the apartment originals. «But how? What does this mean?» Eleanor asked the detective.
«It means,» he replied with a smirk, «that your guest is not so simple. Not only does she sign phony permits for multi-million dollar construction projects, but she also keeps the original documents for the apartment she supposedly sold on her person, preparing to blackmail her estranged husband, no doubt. It all adds up.»
I was led toward the exit. Humiliation, fear, and complete incomprehension mixed into a bitter knot in my throat. As I was being led out of the house, Major Hayes pulled out his phone and called someone.
«Yes, everything is in order. We have her. The subject and the documents are secured, thanks to our anonymous informant for the precise location. Very valuable information.»
I was put into the police car. As the door slammed shut, I cast one last desperate glance at the porch and froze. Detective Hayes walked out from around the corner of the house.
He slowly approached a black sedan parked a little distance away. A man was waiting for him by the car. Young, well-dressed, in an expensive suit.
The lawyer from New York. Tia’s friend. But he did not look like a man who had come to save his friend’s sister.
He stood, smiling confidently. The detective approached him and shook his hand firmly. Then he said something, and both men laughed.
The friend nodded gratefully and pointed toward the house, toward the window I had just been led from. He was thanking the police and pointing at me, and in that moment, I understood everything. The entire terrible picture came together in my head.
There was no lawyer friend. There was no rescue plan. Tia hadn’t gone to New York.
She hadn’t called her friend. She had called Marcus. She gave him everything.
She told him where I was hiding the last evidence of my innocence. She sold me out. My own sister.
Why? The car started moving. I looked at the receding figure of the lawyer, at Eleanor’s house, and nothing was left in my soul but a scorched, icy wasteland.
This wasn’t a setup. It was betrayal. The most terrible, most vile betrayal a person is capable of.
The car sped through the morning streets, but I saw nothing but the emptiness ahead. My sister’s betrayal was a blow from which I could not recover. It was worse than Marcus’s cruelty.
It was the absolute, total destruction of everything I believed in. My family. My anchor.
My last hope. It was all a lie. Tia didn’t just help Marcus.
She became his weapon. She led him to the trail. She handed him the bullets.
She helped him pull the trigger. The interrogation at the Federal Task Force was long and humiliating. Detective Hayes acted as if my guilt was already proven.
He showed me the forged documents, poking his finger at my digital signature. «Confess, Sterling. It will be better for everyone.»
«Tell us how you conspired with unidentified persons to organize this fraud scheme. Who were your accomplices at the plant? Who helped you gain access to the seals?»
I stayed silent. What could I say? Any word would be useless.
They had already written the script, and my role in it was the criminal. The evidence was irrefutable. Here were the documents with my signature.
Here were the originals for the apartment that I was allegedly hiding for blackmail. Everything looked logical and convincing. Marcus and Tia had thought of every detail.
Two days later, I was released. Unexpectedly. The desk sergeant came into the holding cell and said, «Sterling, you’re free to go. Bail has been posted for you.»
I walked out of the detention center, squinting in the daylight. Mr. Wells was waiting for me at the gate. He looked even gloomier than usual.
