Chapter 13
The rain hissed against the hot asphalt as the girl darted out from beneath the concrete overhang, her ragged sneakers splashing through the deep puddles. She sprinted across the deserted alleyway toward the courthouse loading dock, her heart hammering against her ribs. Reaching out with trembling, cold fingers, she snatched the plastic ID badge dangling from the door handle just as a security camera overhead swiveled slowly in her direction.
"Get back here!" the vendor hissed from the shadows, panicking as he watched the red lens of the surveillance camera lock onto her position. He lunged forward, grabbed her by the collar of her tattered t-shirt, and hauled her back under the protective overhang just as the security light flashed amber.
"Are you completely suicidal?" the vendor breathed heavily, his chest heaving as he stared at the plastic badge in her hand. "That camera just logged us! Every security guard from here to Washington is going to be looking for two kids wearing rags and holding a stolen staff pass!"
"It doesn't matter," the girl said, her voice eerily calm as she held up the laminated card. Emblazoned across the front was the official seal of the federal court system, bearing the name and facial photograph of the elderly street vendor who had just gone inside. "This badge gives us Level 3 clearance into the sub-archives beneath the courtroom. That's where the original physical ledgers from my father's original trial are stored."
The vendor stared at the card, then up at the fierce, unyielding determination in the girl's soot-smudged face. A slow, resigned sigh escaped his lips. He realized there was no turning back now. They were already too deep into the abyss to climb out.
"Fine," the vendor muttered, wiping the rainwater from his eyes with the back of his hand. "We go in. But if we get caught this time, I'm telling the judge you kidnapped me and forced me at hotdog-tongs-point."
Ten minutes later, using the stolen ID badge at a discreet side service entrance, the two of them slipped past the automated turnstiles into the subterranean archives of the federal courthouse. The air down here smelled of aging paper, leather bindings, and decades of legal history. Towering metal shelving units stretched endlessly into the dim, fluorescent-lit distance, housing millions of pages of testimony, exhibits, and court transcripts.
The girl consulted the grease-stained map she had memorized earlier, leading the vendor quickly through the labyrinth of shelves until they stopped before a heavy oak door marked: CASE FILE 44-B: STERLING FRAUD INVESTIGATION - SEALED.
She tried the handle, but it was locked with a heavy digital padlock requiring a biometric thumbprint.
"Locked again," the vendor whispered, frustration bleeding into his voice. "We don't have the old man's thumb to open this thing."
"We don't need his thumb," a frail, trembling voice echoed from the shadows behind them.
They spun around in unison, dropping into defensive postures. Stepping out from between the towering bookshelves was the elderly street vendor, leaning heavily against a metal shelving unit, his stained apron soaked with rain and his eyes red from weeping. In his trembling hand, he held a small, black tactical override device.
"You..." the vendor stammered, stepping in front of the girl. "What are you doing here, old man? Did Victoria send you to finish us off?"
May you like
The old man shook his head slowly, a tear tracing a clean path through the grime on his weathered cheek. He looked directly at the girl, his voice breaking with profound remorse.
"She didn't send me," the old man whispered, pressing the override device against the digital lock. With a soft click, the heavy oak door swung wide open, revealing rows of original, un-tampered financial ledgers stacked neatly inside. "I came to give back the hundred thousand dollars. Because some things are worth more than a lifetime of silence."
