Chapter 6 - The Ghost in the Safe House
Two hours later, we were sitting in a heavily guarded FBI safe house in downtown Chicago.
Sarah had finally managed to get the boys to sleep in the adjacent bedroom. I sat at a metal table, staring at a cup of black coffee, trying to process the fact that my entire life had been a meticulously crafted lie.
The heavy steel door of the interrogation room clicked open.
A man walked in. He was wearing a dark tactical sweater. His hair was gray, his face lined with deep wrinkles, but his eyes were exactly the same as the ones I saw in the mirror every morning.
"Elias," my father said, his voice thick with emotion.
I stood up. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to scream. Instead, I just stared at him.
"You let me bury you," I whispered. "I picked out your casket, Dad."
"I had to," Arthur Vance said, stepping forward. "If Evelyn believed I was dead, it was the only way she would drop her guard. For fifteen years, she's been using my logistics company to launder billions for the cartel. I couldn't go to the authorities until I had the master ledger."
"So you just faked a heart attack and ran?"
"I didn't run," my father said, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. "I went to ground to retrieve the ledger. But she was faster than I thought. She moved it."
"Moved it where?"
My father sighed, sitting down across from me. "That's why I left you the key to Locker 42, Elias. The thumb drive you found... it has the encrypted GPS coordinates of Evelyn's personal vault. But I can't get close to it. Every cartel sicario in the Midwest is looking for my face."
"What are you saying, Dad?"
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Arthur looked at me, his eyes filled with a desperate, heavy sorrow.
"I'm saying I need you to break into the vault, Elias. You are the only person whose biometric signature matches the Vance bloodline protocols. You're the only one who can open the door."
