CHAPTER 7 — "The Vault That Should Never Be Opened"
The applause had barely faded when Eleanor's expression changed.
She wasn't looking at the reporters.
She was watching the man in dark sunglasses quietly slipping toward the exit.
"Stop him."
Thomas spoke only two words.
The security team reacted instantly.
The man tried to push through the crowd, but two guards blocked the door before he could escape.
He slowly removed his sunglasses.
The boutique fell silent again.
The manager gasped.
"Richard..."
Richard Hale.
The former Chief Financial Officer.
The man who had disappeared twenty-five years earlier, just weeks after the founder's sudden death.
Everyone believed he had retired overseas.
Eleanor stared into his eyes.
"I've been waiting a very long time."
Richard forced a smile.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Eleanor reached into her handbag one final time.
This time she removed an old black-and-white photograph.
It showed four people standing in front of the boutique's original underground vault.
Her husband.
Thomas as a young man.
Eleanor.
And Richard.
"There were only four people who knew the combination."
Richard's confidence began to crack.
"You accused me years ago."
"No."
Eleanor answered quietly.
"I suspected you."
"But today..."
"I can finally prove it."
Thomas pressed a button on the security tablet.
A hidden elevator behind the showroom wall slowly opened.
Customers stared in disbelief.
Many employees had worked there for decades without knowing the elevator even existed.
Eleanor looked at Richard.
"Come with us."
"No."
"You don't have a choice."
Minutes later, they descended beneath the boutique.
The underground chamber looked untouched by time.
Steel walls.
Ancient safes.
Dust-covered ledgers.
At the center stood an enormous circular vault door engraved with the family crest.
Eleanor inserted the Founder Key.
The mechanism clicked.
But before the vault opened...
A digital scanner flashed red.
SECOND AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Thomas frowned.
"There was never a second lock."
Eleanor's face slowly lost color.
Someone...
Had changed the vault after her family disappeared.
And only the thief would know the new code.
Richard smiled for the first time.
"You'll never open it."
Then he whispered something that made Eleanor's heart stop.
May you like
"Because what I stole..."
"Isn't inside anymore."
