Page 156 of The Scandal You Started
Dominic was better at laughing and reminiscing the evening with Hania and Matt than Rayna was. She focused more on confirming and checking with Cassie that all the notes and documents were in the correct folders, which letters needed further studying, and what was left to be scanned and catalogued from two of the diaries and a handful of letters.
They left the museum after midday and went straight to her and George’s house, where Victor was already waiting. Then, in two separate cars, the four of them made the two-hour drive to find out what was in the safe deposit locker.
“What are those?” Dominic asked once Rayna and George showed him and Victor what they’d found in the deposit box.
Only she and George had been registered with fully authorised access to the safe, so Dominic and Victor had had to wait in the lobby while they’d gone to the basement of the building.
“They’re the backup hard drives Yasmin, Frank, and Samara made of the Rupture research,” Victor muttered.
“There were three,” George said, showing the three slim black drives he held in his hands.
Rayna then opened her palm to reveal a gold key. “There was this too.”
“Good,” Victor said, then nodded towards the deposit’s front desk. “Ask to close the locker; you won’t need it anymore. And then we have one more stop to make.”
“Where?” George asked.
“A storage unit.”
The drive to the storage unit took another hour, but it led them closer and to the west of Redworth. The bright green building sat on an industrial estate with a car park and loading bay right in front of its big yellow entrance doors.
On the second floor, they found the small unit the key unlocked, revealing stacks of cardboard boxes piled upon grey plastic boxes filled with papers, files, and manila folders.
“Your parents weren’t sure if the drives would ever become corrupted,” Victor explained, “so they made paper copies of all the research, including Wilson’s initial theories.”
With Dominic and George carrying a cardboard box each, Rayna worked with Victor to move the bigger plastic boxes out of the unit and down the lift to their cars. It took a few journeys until both the backseats and boots of her and Victor’s car were full.
Once they made the hour-and-ten-minute drive back to their house, the four of them restarted the process of transferring the boxes inside.
They were scattered all around the open-plan downstairs of the house, through the double-doors at the end of the square entrance hallway. They were lined along the varnished wooden banister of the stairs along the right and between the two fabric sofas and matching armchair that boxed in the TV hanging above the exposed fireplace.
But rather than opening any of them after eating dinner, Victor instructed Rayna and Dominic to go back to the farmhouse.
“What? No,” Rayna argued. “We should start looking through the files—”
“I need to check the drives to make sure they’re still fine first, Rayna,” he said. “Tomorrow—”
“No, V,” she said almost angrily.
“Tomorrow,” he reiterated as he cupped her shoulders, “after you two come back from the museum, we’ll create a plan on how we’re going to do this. We can’t all just attack the research. We need to find out more about Dominic too, so we have to work out a proper strategy first.”
She understood, she did, but this sitting around waiting while time slipped through her fingers was making her agitated. Fearful and frantic and frustrated. She couldn’t do it for another day.
Not when her hope was already beginning to show signs of fracturing.
Dominic’s hand snaked around her waist, pulling her into him when Victor let go of her. “We will come back tomorrow,” he said confidently.
Rayna didn’t particularly like that he’d made the decision for her, but unable to logically argue with either him or Victor, she said her goodbyes and let Dominic take her by the hand to the car.
“I hate this,” she muttered as she slumped in the driver’s seat.
“I know,” Dominic whispered, giving her thigh a squeeze. “As do I, but Victor is correct. We need a plan. Otherwise, we shall blindly be searching for answers that may not even help us.”
“I know, I just…” She drifted off and sighed.
“Do not fret, my love.” He shaped her jaw and kissed her temple. “This will work. Wewillfind a way. All shall work itself out.”
It wasn’t working itself out, though. At least it didn’t feel like it was.
