Chapter 5 - The Third-Floor Apartment
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Lianna disappeared into a faded brick apartment building with peeling white paint on the front porch.
Corbin waited five minutes before stepping out of his car. He pulled his hood over his head and walked across the street, looking up at the building. Through a third-story window, he saw a warm light click on.
Moments later, Lianna appeared in the frame holding a small baby wrapped in a yellow blanket. She was gently rocking the infant, pressing her forehead against his small head.
Corbin reached into his coat pocket. He had brought an envelope containing two thousand dollars in cash—money he intended to slip into her rusted mailbox in the foyer with a printed note claiming it was an anonymous local hardship grant.
He walked up the front steps of the porch and opened the unlocked glass door into the cramped, dimly lit mail foyer.
As he located mailbox #3B, bearing the faded label PRESCOTT, he heard the sudden, heavy crunch of gravel behind him in the driveway.
Corbin glanced through the dirty glass door.
A sleek, black Mercedes S-Class—a luxury vehicle completely out of place in this neighborhood—had just pulled up directly behind his sedan.
The driver’s side door opened. Out stepped a tall, elderly man wearing a bespoke charcoal trench coat and carrying a leather briefcase.
May you like
Corbin’s breath hitched in his throat.
It was Richard Sterling—the Stanford family attorney.
