The Secret Beneath the Clock Tower
Chapter 5
The police report said Daniel had been detained for operating an unlicensed street business and obstructing a public walkway.
Vivian knew it was nonsense.
Daniel had been selling umbrellas on that sidewalk for years.
She drove to the station.
He was sitting in a small interview room when she arrived.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.
“Neither should you.”
He smiled.
“Fair enough.”
Vivian sat opposite him.
“Who arranged this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
She studied his face.
For the first time, he looked tired.
Not frightened.
Tired.
“Daniel, what were you going to tell me about the vault?”
He looked toward the camera.
“Not here.”
“Then write it down.”
He shook his head.
“Too dangerous.”
Vivian leaned forward.
“My mother died twenty years ago. Someone has been hiding documents from me. My father’s CFO knows more than he’s saying. And now you’re sitting in a police station because someone wants you quiet.”
She paused.
“I think I’ve earned the truth.”
Daniel stared at her.
Then he said, “The vault isn’t beneath the hotel.”
“What?”
“The photograph was taken before construction finished.”
“Then where is it?”
“Across the street.”
Vivian remembered the old building.
The one that had been converted into a parking garage.
“The clock tower?”
Daniel nodded.
“The original clock tower belonged to the land before the hotel was built.”
“What’s inside?”
“The deed.”
“What deed?”
“The one proving your mother never sold the land.”
Vivian’s heart pounded.
“So my family doesn’t legally own the hotel?”
“Not entirely.”
“Who does?”
Daniel looked at the camera again.
“I don’t know.”
The door opened.
A police officer entered.
“Your lawyer is here.”
Daniel stood.
As Vivian walked out, he whispered:
“Look at the clock.”
That night, Vivian returned to the hotel.
She entered through the service corridor and climbed the stairs to the old mechanical room.
The hotel’s decorative clock was mounted above the main lobby.
Few people knew the clock mechanism extended through three floors.
Vivian found an access panel.
Behind it was an old brass plate.
She wiped away the dust.
There were initials engraved into it.
E.C.
Her mother’s initials.
Beside them was a date.
October 3, 1998.
Vivian’s birthday.
She stared at it.
Her birthday had always been October 3.
Why would her mother leave something inside a clock on that date?
She searched the panel.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a narrow gap behind the gears.
Inside was a small key.
She pulled it out.
The key had a number stamped on it.
17.
Vivian remembered something.
Her mother had once told her, when she was a child:
“If you ever feel like everyone is telling you the same story, look for the door nobody talks about.”
Vivian had thought it was a strange childhood saying.
Now she understood.
She found the old blueprint of the hotel.
There was a room labeled 17.
It had been sealed during the renovation twenty years earlier.
Vivian grabbed a flashlight.
But before she could leave, the lights went out.
Someone was standing behind her.
“Looking for something?”
Martin Vale.
