Husband With Benefits-Chapter 592: Found At Last

Gabe looked around the stowaway place in surprise. This was not what he had expected. The nondescript building from the outside seemed unremarkable, but inside, it was a maze of narrow corridors lined with storage lockers of various sizes.

"This place is like a labyrinth," Gabe remarked, his eyes scanning the rows of lockers.

"Yeah, Mrs. Jenkins actually insisted on this place. The yearly payments cost a bomb as well, but she insisted on paying for it until she died. And she even took the huge locker that could actually fit me inside... I told her to at least discard some of the things she didn’t need but she was almost a hoarder..." Autumn answered wryly.

Finally, a few nominal checks from the manager and they were allowed to access the locker. Autumn hesitated for a moment before opening the door, the rusty hinges groaning in protest. Inside, boxes and bags were piled haphazardly, a few almost falling on her the moment the door opened. Thankfully, they were caught by Gabe who raised an eyebrow at her..."I thought you said you’d put them here safely."

"I might have ’put’ them haphazardly. At the time, I didn’t know what it was okay, it just felt like she wanted to trouble me! I just tried to make sure that nothing fell or moved about if there wa san earthquake..."

Gabe shook his head and rolled pretended to roll his sleeves as he carefully started to take out the boxes and muttered," Let’s get to finding the figurine... in this game of Jenga1"

As Gabe placed the boxes on the floor, Autumn started to rifle through each box. But only old clothes, faded photographs, and knick-knacks emerged from the depths and a lot of dust that made her sneeze. She checked each box eagerly but was soon disappointed.

Finally, when she saw the last box left, she glared at it resentfully, having no hope for it now. Just as she was about to give up and walk away, Gabe’s hand emerged from a box, clutching a small, intricately carved figurine., placed in a smaller box...

Her eyes widened in relief and she quicly grabbed the figurine, inspecting it carefully. She shook it carefully as she put her ear to the piece and could heard the faint sound of whatever was inside. However, she had no idea where to insert a key and where to find the place to insert the key or any kind of machination.

She passed the figurine back to Gabe, hoping he might be able to find it, but he also looked at it wholly, unable to find anything...

"Should we try to pry it open?" Autumn asked and Gabe nodded. He could see a small seam... Retrieving a swiss knife from his pocket, he inserted the thinnest blade into the seam and tried to move the panel. But it remained unmoved. He tried again, applying a bit more pressure, but the figurine remained stubbornly intact.

"Let’s not force it. That might do more harm than good and damage whatever is inside. I’ll tell you what, we’ll take this to that man tomorrow at L&K and make him give us more information about the key. He did say we had to show him the figurine first."

Autumn sighed with frustration, "I know, you’re right. I just hoped we could solve it right here. On the one hand, it seems as if everything is going so slow. We are getting held up at every turn and lead. On the other, the days are passing hurriedly and we have nothing to show against Savoy that would force the court to keep him away. I just want something palpable against him! Anything."

Gabe sighed and wondered if he should tell her what Demetri had stumbled onto. And yet, he knew that what they’d found out was making him sick. He couldn’t dare to imagine it would do to Autumn. But despite all this, he was willing to tell Autumn everything...if only they had concrete evidence. Until now, all they had was circumstansial evidence and their own suspicions.

"We’ll get there.Don’t worry." Gabe reassured her but he too feared that this time, they might fail. And he was dreading that. How was that Gregory Savoy so smart as to not leave any evidence? Not a single mistake in all these years? There had to be somewhere that the man had faulted in hisiding away the evidence. He only needed to look closer.

Meanwhile, Autumn was carefully repacking the remaining items back into the boxes to put in the locker and making sure everything was secure before closing the door to the locker. She held the figuring protectively close to her chest as they walked away, fearing that it might disappear...

"Let’s grab something to eat. You need to relax a bit."

Autumn managed a small smile. "Food does sound good right now."

As they waited for their orders, Autumn couldn’t help but fidget. "I just don’t understand why Mom would hide something so important without telling me more about it. Espcially because this probably concerns me."

Gabe reached across the table and gently took her hand. "Maybe she wanted to protect you. Or maybe she thought you’d be safer if you didn’t know everything right away. We can only guess at her reasons for now."

"I’m just hating this feeling of being left a step behind. I wish I knew these things. She could hace left me a hint at least."

Gabe looked up at that. "I think she did."

Autumn’s eyes widened with surprise. "What do you mean?"

"The photo where we discovered the figurine? There was a quote next to it.. Something that said, "Let the one who loved you most protect you with what he left behind..."

"But that could be a showpiece only, right?"

"I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure that there was a reason why your mother chose that picture to be put on a nightstand in Arabelle’s room. She wanted to leave you a hint..."