19 - Lane
Lane
“I can get it open, but it’s ultimately up to you,” Bear said.
I bit the inside of my cheek, quietly studying the lockbox and weighing up the evidence of everything I already knew against everything I didn’t.
Nance’s warning blared in my ears, and the contents of the file she gave me on Sandy loomed in the background.
I knew that there might be more danger present than I was willing to admit out loud, but I also knew that I was curious.
And having Bear, Sy and Dax around me, their presence oddly comforting right now, gave me more courage to just rip the bandaid off.
“Open it,” I said eventually.
Bear nodded and pulled a heavy-duty steel crowbar from his tool belt.
He tapped the flat, chisel end of the bar directly into the seam of the lid, using his framing hammer to get a bite.
He then wrapped a thick shop rag around the box, braced his boot against the base to steady it and threw his weight into a single, controlled downward lever motion.
The cheap, rusted wafer lock popped with a sharp, dry crack instead of the dramatic explosion I was expecting.
We all huddled closer and took a look inside. The very first thing I noticed, because it would've been pretty damn hard to not to, was the gun placed on top of a ledger. My stomach lurched.
Bear carefully lifted it out of the box with the shop rag and examined it briefly. Dax leaned over his shoulder, his dark eyes tracking the rust on the gun. “The piece is dirty. You don’t bury iron under floorboards unless it’s got bodies on it, or it’s a placeholder for insurance.”
Bear grunted in affirmation, then put the weapon off to the side once he was sure it wasn’t hot. That already was a terrible omen if I’ve ever seen one, but it was too late to turn back now. I directed my attention back to the rest of the box’s contents.
The ledger itself was a classic bound columnar account book.
The pages were yellowed and smelled faintly of cellar damp and machine oil from the gun as I gingerly began to leaf through it.
I didn’t just see numbers, I saw the same kind of paper trails Nance dug up that had me reeling.
There were two distinct writing styles—one meticulous and elegant, the other untidy and hurried.
I spotted parallel columns listing cash amounts next to benign descriptions like, “HVAC repairs” or “Landscaping materials”.
But the staggered, irregular dates were a dead giveaway.
Laundering deals, debts, other illegal records stuffed in a box under my bathroom floor. This was a double-entry skimming log.
“What is this?” Sy asked, his brow furrowed.
“A shadow ledger.” The rest of us turned to look at Dax. His jaw was set, his eyes hard. “That’s the insurance. I’ve seen guys who…let’s just say people who handle untaxed cash don’t trust banking apps.”
The mob. He was talking about the mob.
My head started spinning and my hands trembled.
Dax took the book from me, thumbing through it himself.
I leaned over and tried to ignore the feeling of bile rising in my throat.
Bear and Sy were also standing nearby, equally curious.
No one made a single mention of Dax’s knowledge on the topic, and honestly I didn’t even want to know.
I might’ve asked if my eyes hadn’t suddenly snagged on something that made my world drain of sound. A single name, scrawled out in that untidy handwriting.
Sandy Manning.
The light queasiness I felt now cranked up to full on violent nausea. This just confirmed my biggest fears about Nance’s papertrail. The links between Uncle Ricky’s unit and Sandy’s ties to Chicagoland, spelt out as obviously as if it’d been advertised on a billboard.
I grabbed the ledger back from Dax and snapped it shut, harder than I meant to. The men all stared at me.
“We have no business chasing up ghosts,” I said, trying my best to replace the shakiness in my voice with steel. “It was buried for a reason.”
I unceremoniously dumped the ledger back into the pit.
“I’d appreciate it if you guys could please close this back up and tile over it,” I said.
For a heartbeat, the guys were too stunned to respond. Dax was, of course, the first one to speak. “Just like that? Like this never happened?”
“Because it didn’t,” I said emphatically.
“Lane, look…I get that this is scary, but maybe we should think a bit longer before we make any hasty decisions,” he replied.
“Last time I checked, this was my house,” My words were a wry mirror to what he’d said to me all those weeks back. “I’m paying you to renovate it. Don't give me legal advice, that’s my job.”
Dax’s frown deepened. Bear stood up, dusting his hands on his work pants. “Not to take up Miller’s case here, but he’s not wrong. This is clearly something much bigger than just forgotten clutter. The fact it was buried in the first place is—”
“The exact reason it should stay buried,” I cut in.
Bear made a gesture of agreement but Sy wasn’t on the same page. He also rose to his feet, giving me an apologetic look. “Lane, I get why this has you spooked, but maybe we should just turn everything in to the cops. That’s the safest option.”
“Yeah, if you wanna find yourself buried under someone else’s house,” Dax countered.
“Well then what would you suggest? Seeing as you know so much about this shit,” Bear asked.
“Time to think and a deeper look,” Dax said. His eyes found mine. “You have to be careful with these kinds of things, Lane.”
“Hence why I suggested we take everything to the cops,” Sy grumbled.
“I’m not taking it to the cops and I’m not digging further,” I said definitively.
The three of them turned to face me sharply. I took a deep breath.
“I see what you’re all saying. And I know that you’re all trying to do what you think is best here. But…I need to think about it for a while. For now, I think I want to keep it buried. Sit on it until things clear up.”
None of them really looked like they agreed with me. But in turn, each man nodded, offering a silent show of support for my decision. What I didn’t tell them though, was that I was afraid.
I was scared of what digging further would mean for my uncle’s legacy, and in turn what that would mean for my ownership of this house.
If I uncovered the source of the ledger and more proof of illegal activities taking place here, then I’d have no choice but to turn it in.
And there was the sinking feeling of what I might discover about who Uncle Ricky was.
I made my living off of finding missing pieces and stitching them together.
This was one case I didn’t want to connect.
I looked at each man, forcing them to catch my eye. “Promise me, all of you, that you aren’t going to do anything about this. Don’t breathe a word to anyone, especially not the cops. At least until I figure out a plan. Please?”
Sy was the first to nod his head. “Of course.”
Bear sighed heavily, a knowing look on his face as he folded his arms. “I don’t like this at all. But as long as you’re sure, fine.”
Dax was the last to break. But eventually, he shook his head. “Your call, Whittaker. I promise.”
A sudden loud series of knocks made all of us jump.
I got up to answer, eager to try and get out of the bubble of discovery. The guys followed me out at a small distance. I opened the door to meet a stranger I didn’t recognize. He looked very young and unsure of himself, dressed in a windbreaker.
“Are you Lane Whittaker?” he asked in a cracking voice.
“I am,” I answered, my gut already telling me where this was going.
“You’ve been served.” He handed me a thick manila envelope. “Have a good day.”
Then he scurried off, leaving me to enjoy myself because what else could a manila envelope be but “a good day” waiting to get even better. I tore it open, my heart beating against my ribs.
“What’s wrong?” Bear asked, coming up to stand beside me as I closed and locked the door.
I sounded deadpan, my brain not quite fully processing the words as I read them straight off the page.
“It’s a Temporary Restraining Order,” I said, my fingers tightening on the edge of the legal stock paper. “Sandy filed an ex parte petition with the Cook County Chancery Division. He’s claiming emergency structural endangerment to the shared elements of the HOA.”
“The fuck,” Dax muttered, his jaw twitching as he came over to look at the papers himself. “So the bastard gets to bypass a trial and just shut us down?”
“He definitely lied to a judge behind my back and said our bathroom gut job is going to collapse the entire building,” I replied.
My legs felt unsteady beneath me and I leaned back against the wall to steady myself.
“Until we get a hearing, this is a legally binding freeze. If any of you so much as turn on a drill tomorrow morning, we’re all in contempt of court. ”