Officers listened carefully, faces tightening as they examined the pages. They dispatched units to the warehouse. Hours later, they reported finding Alden still trapped but alive, along with the vault and remaining files. Alden was taken into custody, shouting that Rowan had misunderstood, that he was lying.
Investigators secured the chest and transported it to a controlled facility. Document specialists began cataloguing what Rowan’s father had preserved. The papers, they said, appeared authentic and damning—layers of fraud, bribes, and deliberate endangerment of ships. Rowan watched through the glass as his father’s handwriting moved from mystery to proof.