Chapter 7 - The Signature on the Wall
Aaron pushed Tessa, Dana, and me behind the concrete partition at the back of the basement.
Two of his guards moved up the stairs without making a sound.
I could hear my own breathing.
I could hear Tessa's too.
Then glass shattered upstairs.
A guard shouted.
Another voice yelled, "Back door."
Aaron ran toward the stairs.
I started after him.
He turned so fast I nearly collided with him.
"Stay here."
I hated being ordered in my own crisis.
I stayed.
Thirty seconds later, the lights returned.
The person who had entered the laundromat was gone.
He had broken a rear window, crossed the main floor, and fled when security moved toward him.
Nothing in the basement appeared touched.
Until Dana pointed at the wall beside locker B-17.
Someone had written a message in black marker.
YOU WERE WARNED ONCE.
Beneath it was a signature.
O. COLE.
Tessa stared at her father's name.
"That is not funny."
"No," I said.
"Somebody wants me to think Dad did this."
"Or wants us to believe he is involved."
"Same thing."
Aaron photographed the writing.
"Whoever came in did not have time to write all of that after we arrived."
I looked at him.
"You think it was already here."
"Yes."
"That means someone knew we would find the locker."
Dana nodded.
"Or someone found it before us and left the contents intentionally."
Tessa's head snapped toward her.
"You think the evidence was planted?"
"I think we have to consider every possibility."
"My mother's voice was not planted."
"No."
"My father's key was not planted."
"We do not know when that key was put under your floor."
Tessa stepped toward Dana.
I moved between them before the argument became something else.
"Dana is not accusing your mother."
"She is accusing somebody."
"She is doing her job."
Tessa looked at me.
"And what is your job?"
The question cut deeper than she intended.
For years, I would have answered without hesitation.
Build the company.
Protect the company.
Protect the people who depended on it.
Now I was no longer sure those duties had ever meant the same thing.
"My job is to find out what happened."
"No."
She pointed toward South Halsted through the small basement window.
"Your job was to know what was happening before my mother had to hide evidence in a laundromat."
I did not answer.
Dana looked down.
Aaron pretended to check his radio.
Tessa immediately looked ashamed of the cruelty in her tone.
But I did not want her apology.
"I know," I said.
We left the laundromat at two thirty in the morning.
The evidence went into sealed bags in Dana's custody.
I refused to send it to corporate security.
Until we knew who could be trusted, the company itself was a contaminated scene.
Back at the estate, Tessa checked on her brothers.
Both were asleep in a guest room near hers.
I watched her pull the blanket higher over Noah's shoulder.
Then she noticed me in the doorway.
"You do not sleep?"
"Not well."
"Rich people problem?"
"Mostly bad decisions."
She almost smiled again.
Then it disappeared.
"Was Luca close to your father?"
"Yes."
"How close?"
"His mother was my father's younger sister."
"That is not what I asked."
I leaned against the doorframe.
"Luca spent more time in our house than his own when we were kids."
"Why?"
"His father drank."
Tessa looked at me.
"Your family has problems too."
"We just had better curtains."
This time she did smile.
It surprised both of us.
Then Eli shifted in his sleep and the moment ended.
I returned to my office and called Luca at three sixteen.
He answered after six rings.
"Do you know what time it is?"
"Yes."
"Then this better be a fire."
"Do you know Harrow Bridge Resources?"
Silence.
Not long.
Long enough.
"I know the name."
"How?"
"Vendor, maybe."
"You own Lake Crown Advisory."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Harrow Bridge paid Lake Crown four hundred seventy-five thousand dollars."
Luca's breathing changed.
"You are calling me at three in the morning to audit consulting invoices from years ago?"
"I am calling because Katherine Cole wrote your name on a list before she died."
This silence was longer.
"Who?"
"A night cleaner at South Halsted."
"No idea."
"She died in a car crash."
"Zo, I do not know every employee."
I closed my eyes.
The sentence sounded exactly like something I would have said forty-eight hours ago.
"She had evidence Harrow Bridge was stealing wages."
"That is serious."
"You sound surprised."
"I am."
"Why did they pay your company?"
"Lake Crown did consulting."
"What consulting?"
"Operations."
"Be specific."
"I do not remember."
"That is nearly half a million dollars."
"It was years ago."
"So check."
"Now?"
"Yes."
Luca swore softly.
"You have lost your mind."
"Maybe."
"Victor said you were spiraling over some maid."
My hand tightened around the phone.
"Victor talked to you about Tessa?"
Another pause.
"He said you were reopening old files because of an employee complaint."
"I did not tell him about the notebook."
"What notebook?"
Too fast.
Much too fast.
I sat forward.
"I did not say there was a notebook."
Luca stopped speaking.
I could hear traffic somewhere near him.
He was not home.
"Where are you?"
"Do not start interrogating me."
"Where are you?"
"Go to sleep, Zo."
He hung up.
I called Aaron.
"Find Luca."
"Legally?"
"Public location data, building access, anything company-owned."
"I will see what I can do."
At four ten, Aaron sent me an image from the garage camera beneath our downtown office.
Luca's car had entered at two forty-eight.
Victor Hale's car entered four minutes later.
Neither had left.
I drove downtown before sunrise.
Tessa demanded to come.
I told her no.
She got into the car anyway.
We entered through the underground garage.
Aaron met us beside the executive elevator.
"Victor's office lights are on."
"Luca?"
"No card activity after the garage."
We took the stairs.
The forty-second floor was empty.
Victor's office door stood open.
He was inside alone.
He looked up from his desk as if a six a.m. meeting had been scheduled.
"Zo."
His eyes shifted to Tessa.
Then back to me.
"This is inappropriate."
"So was using my authorization token."
His face did not change.
"I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Katherine Cole's settlement."
"I already explained that."
"You lied about when it was signed."
That made him pause.
Tessa stepped forward.
"My mother was alive when your fake settlement says my father released her wrongful death claim."
Victor looked at her for the first time directly.
"I am sorry for your loss."
"Do not."
Her voice was ice.
"Do not use that sentence on me."
Victor looked back at me.
"I can explain the date."
"Then explain it."
"It was a preemptive employment release."
"For a woman who was already afraid?"
"She had threatened litigation."
"For what?"
"Payroll disputes."
"Then why label it wrongful death?"
"Administrative template error."
I laughed once.
Victor's eyes narrowed.
"You find that funny?"
"I find it insulting."
He stood.
"Zo, you are letting a household employee drag you into a manufactured crisis."
Tessa flinched at the words.
I stepped closer to Victor.
"Say her name."
He stared at me.
"What?"
"Her name is Tessa Cole."
Victor's jaw tightened.
"You are not thinking clearly."
"Where is Luca?"
"I do not know."
"His car is downstairs."
"I cannot help that."
"Your car arrived four minutes after his."
"Coincidence."
"At three in the morning."
"Yes."
"What were you doing here?"
"Working."
"On what?"
Victor leaned toward me.
"On saving this company from the man who currently seems determined to burn it down because he feels guilty about frightening a maid."
The insult was meant to provoke me.
It almost worked.
Then Tessa spoke quietly.
"Where is Graham?"
Victor looked at her.
For the first time, I saw something like fear in his eyes.
It vanished quickly.
"Who?"
"Graham Pike."
"I know who Graham is."
"Then why did you ask who?"
Victor's mouth tightened.
Tessa took another step.
"My mother recorded him following her."
That was information Victor should not have known.
His reaction told me he did.
A tiny movement.
His right hand flattened against the desk.
Then the fire alarm began screaming.
Red lights flashed across the office.
Aaron's radio exploded with voices.
"Fire on thirty-eight."
"Archive level."
Victor turned toward the window.
I stared at him.
The thirty-eighth floor held retired accounting records from the years Katherine worked at South Halsted.
Tessa looked at me.
May you like
"Coincidence?"
Smoke was already rising past the windows outside.
