Chapter 10 - The Black Metal Case
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“What wreck?” I demanded, the room spinning around me. “Samuel, look at me! What wreck was Caleb talking about?!”
Samuel closed his eyes for a long moment, taking a slow, deep breath before sitting back down in the armchair. When he opened his eyes, the judge was gone; only a tormented old man remained.
“The night your parents died... it was not a simple weather accident, Natalie,” Samuel began, his voice barely above a whisper.
I stopped breathing. “What?”
“Your father called me at 11:40 p.m. from his car phone,” Samuel said. “He was frantic. He told me that a dark sedan had been following them for ten miles on the mountain highway, trying to force them off the road.”
“Oh God...” I gasped, covering my mouth with both hands.
“I was at my lake house, only fifteen minutes away,” Samuel continued. “I rushed to the highway, but by the time I arrived, the car had already crashed down the embankment into the ravine. Your mother was gone instantly. Your father was barely conscious, crushed behind the steering wheel. You were six years old, trapped in the back seat, screaming.”
Tears streamed down my face as the suppressed horrors of that night threatened to break through my memory.
“Before your father took his last breath,” Samuel whispered, a tear escaping his own eye, “he grabbed my coat collar. He pointed to a small black metal case wedged under the front passenger seat. He told me: ‘If we don’t make it, take the case. Don’t let them find it. Protect Birdie.’”
“And you took it?” I asked, horrified. “Before the police got there?”
“I took it, pulled you out of the window, and carried you up the embankment just as the first emergency sirens echoed in the distance,” Samuel confessed.
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“What was inside the case?” I rasped.
“Corporate ledger files,” Samuel revealed. “Files showing that Northstar’s secret tracking technology wasn’t just being built for maritime rescues. It was being illegally sold to an unauthorized foreign surveillance syndicate. And your father had discovered the paper trail.”
