THE LULLABY KEY : THE FALL
CHAPTER 32: The Father’s Last Riddle
That night, Lena couldn’t sleep.
She lay in her hotel room, staring at the ceiling, replaying the hearing in her head. The skeptical faces. The dismissive questions. The way the bulldog senator had smirked when she mentioned Marchetti.
He knows something, she thought. He knows Marchetti is real. And he’s trying to discredit me.
She sat up and grabbed her laptop.
The vault was still open. Still accessible. Still full of secrets.
She searched for the bulldog senator’s name: SENATOR JAMES HARRINGTON.
Dozens of files appeared.
She opened the first one.
A photograph. Harrington, shaking hands with a man whose face had been blurred out.
The caption read: “HARRINGTON MEETS WITH MARCHETTI ASSOCIATE, 2014.”
Lena’s heart raced.
She opened the second file.
An email. From Harrington’s private account. Dated three days before her father’s murder.
“The Crane problem needs to be resolved. Permanently. Let me know when it’s done.”
The email was addressed to a known Aegis Solutions account.
Lena sat back in her chair.
Harrington wasn’t just a skeptic. He was a conspirator. A co-conspirator. A man who had helped sign her father’s death warrant.
She picked up her phone.
“Marcus. We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“A senator-shaped problem. James Harrington. He’s one of them.”
Marcus was silent for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“I have the emails. The photographs. The witness statements. He’s been working with Marchetti for years.”
“Then we need to go public. Tonight. Before he can destroy the evidence.”
“He’s a United States senator. He has immunity. We can’t just—”
“We can. And we will.” Marcus’s voice was hard. “This is how they’ve survived for thirty years. By making people think they’re untouchable. They’re not. No one is.”
Lena looked at the email again.
“Let me know when it’s done.”
Her father had been murdered because a senator had sent an email.
Not a ghost. Not a shadow. A man. An elected official. A man who had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution.
She typed a new message to Zero.
“I need you to verify something. Senator James Harrington. His connection to Aegis. His connection to Marchetti. And his connection to my father’s murder.”
Zero replied within seconds.
“Already on it. Give me two hours.”
Lena closed her laptop.
She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.
But sleep didn’t come.
She was too angry. Too scared. Too determined.
The ghosts of the past were calling.
And she intended to answer.