Chapter 2 - The Price of Silence
Beatrice's hands began to shake.
Dante took the phone before she dropped it.
He studied the second photograph.
Maggie's kitchen.
The small blue kettle Beatrice had given her last Christmas.
A half-open refrigerator.
A purse hanging from the chair.
No Maggie.
“Call her,” Dante said.
Beatrice did.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Voicemail.
Her chest tightened.
“She always answers me.”
Dante was already speaking quietly into his own phone.
“Luca. Gallagher. Maggie. Find her.”
He listened.
“No police yet.”
Beatrice snapped her head toward him.
“No police?”
“If she's in immediate danger, yes. But if this is intimidation and the person watching is inside this building, calling police publicly tells them we've reacted.”
“My sister is not a chess piece.”
His eyes met hers.
“Neither are you.”
The firmness of the answer stopped her.
Dante handed back her phone.
“Text her something ordinary.”
“What?”
“Anything you would normally send.”
Beatrice typed with trembling fingers.
Did you steal my blue sweater again?
She hated how absurd it looked.
Three dots appeared.
Then vanished.
Appeared again.
A reply came.
No. You left it here. Stop blaming me for your laundry disasters.
Beatrice nearly collapsed.
“That's her.”
“You're certain?”
“Only Maggie calls my folding a laundry disaster.”
Dante nodded once.
“Ask her where she is.”
Coffee shop on 73rd. Why?
Beatrice showed him.
Dante spoke into his phone again.
“Confirmed. Seventy-third. Stay invisible.”
She stared.
“You have someone following her?”
“Protecting.”
“You arranged that in under a minute?”
“Yes.”
That should have frightened her.
It did.
But not as much as the photographs.
“Whoever sent those knows where she lives.”
“They wanted you scared.”
“It worked.”
“Fear isn't failure.”
Beatrice looked away.
From the ballroom came another burst of laughter, strangely normal after what had just happened.
People were returning to their champagne.
That angered her more than anything.
Her life had shifted sideways, and somebody twenty feet away was discussing dessert.
Dante closed the folder.
“I need the original files.”
“They're on my office computer.”
“Can you access them remotely?”
“No. Our financial servers require physical token authentication.”
“Where is the token?”
“In my desk.”
“The same desk someone opened?”
“Yes.”
“Then we're going upstairs.”
Beatrice hesitated.
“This is Charles's event.”
Dante looked at her.
“I wasn't asking Charles.”
They crossed the ballroom together.
This time Beatrice walked beside him instead of behind.
Nobody laughed.
The reaction was almost embarrassing in its completeness.
People who had ignored her suddenly moved aside.
Men who had never remembered her name nodded politely.
Women who had spent years looking through her now looked directly at her.
Beatrice hated it.
Not Dante's protection.
Their fear.
So respect had always been possible.
They had simply decided she did not deserve it until someone powerful demanded it.
Near the elevator, Charles appeared.
“Beatrice.”
She stopped.
Dante did not.
Charles looked at him.
“Mr. Moretti, our offices are closed during the event.”
“I know.”
“Security policy—”
“Move.”
Charles did.
Immediately.
Beatrice almost laughed.
The elevator doors opened.
Dante entered.
Beatrice followed.
Charles stepped toward them.
Dante pressed the button for the thirty-seventh floor.
The doors began closing.
Charles shoved his hand between them.
“Beatrice, think carefully.”
She stared at him.
“About what?”
“Your career.”
Dante's expression sharpened.
Beatrice stepped closer to the narrowing gap.
“I have.”
The doors closed.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Dante said, “That was better.”
“What was?”
“Your answer.”
“I didn't ask for a performance review.”
His mouth twitched.
Almost a smile.
“You really aren't afraid of me.”
Beatrice looked at him.
“I am.”
“Good.”
“That's an odd response.”
“Only foolish people aren't afraid of dangerous things.”
“Are you dangerous?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
That answer disturbed her more than denial would have.
The elevator opened.
Wilkes & Hart occupied three floors of glass-walled offices overlooking Manhattan.
At night the place felt abandoned.
Beatrice led him toward accounting.
“What exactly are you?” she asked.
“A client.”
She glanced at his neck tattoos.
“A terrifyingly overdressed client?”
“I left the jacket downstairs.”
“That explains everything.”
He looked at her.
She surprised herself by smiling.
Then they reached her office.
The smile vanished.
The door was open.
Beatrice knew she had locked it.
Inside, drawers had been emptied onto the floor.
Paper covered the carpet.
Her monitor lay sideways.
A framed photograph of Beatrice and Maggie had been smashed.
Dante entered first.
“Don't touch anything.”
Beatrice stood in the doorway.
Her desk drawer was open.
“The token.”
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
He surveyed the room.
“Anything else missing?”
She scanned the mess.
Her purse had been untouched.
Laptop still there.
Family photograph damaged.
Financial binders dumped.
“They weren't searching randomly.”
“No.”
“They knew exactly what they wanted.”
Dante crouched near the desk.
Something small glittered beside the wastebasket.
He picked it up with a tissue.
A silver cuff link.
The engraved letters read:
CW.
Charles Wilkes.
Beatrice stared.
“That's convenient.”
“Too convenient,” Dante said.
“You don't think it's his?”
“I think anyone intelligent enough to move almost five million dollars through layered vendor accounts is intelligent enough not to leave engraved jewelry behind.”
“Then someone wants us to blame Charles.”
“Or wants us to think exactly that.”
Beatrice rubbed her forehead.
“I preferred spreadsheets.”
“Spreadsheets are why you're here.”
She looked at her monitor.
“I might still be able to reconstruct the authorization logs from local cache.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Dante checked his watch.
“You have fifteen.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever entered your office may come back.”
Beatrice sat.
Her computer still worked.
She righted the screen, logged in, and began pulling temporary files from the auditing software.
Dante stood near the door.
For someone with his reputation, he was remarkably good at silence.
Beatrice typed.
Lines of data appeared.
She compared timestamps.
Vendor IDs.
Approvals.
“You were right,” she said.
“About?”
“My employee code.”
She enlarged a transaction.
“The falsified approvals all came from a terminal in executive administration.”
“Charles?”
“Possibly.”
She opened another log.
Then froze.
“What?”
“The access terminal changed.”
“To where?”
“Client relations.”
“Victoria.”
“Yes.”
Another entry.
Then another.
Beatrice's pulse accelerated.
“They alternate.”
“Charles and Victoria?”
“No. The terminals alternate. But look at the timestamps.”
Dante leaned beside her.
“Exactly twelve minutes apart.”
“Every time.”
“For three months?”
“Yes.”
Dante's jaw tightened.
“Automated?”
“Maybe. But someone has to initiate the batch sequence.”
“Can you identify where?”
Beatrice searched.
The software rejected access.
“Not without the token.”
Dante swore quietly.
She kept working.
“There may be another way.”
“How?”
“Backup accounting terminal in records storage.”
“Where?”
“Basement.”
They both looked toward the door.
Dante's phone buzzed.
Luca.
He answered.
“Yes.”
His face changed.
“What do you mean?”
He listened.
“Stay with her.”
Beatrice stood.
“What happened?”
Dante ended the call.
“Your sister's safe.”
“But?”
“Someone approached her at the coffee shop.”
“Who?”
“A man wearing a Wilkes & Hart security badge.”
Beatrice went cold.
“What did he want?”
“He asked whether you had called her tonight.”
“Did she answer?”
“No. My man interrupted.”
Beatrice stared at the destroyed office.
“They know I'm not cooperating.”
“Yes.”
“Then we go to the basement.”
Dante looked almost impressed.
“You just received a threat against your sister.”
“Which is why I'm done being scared into obedience.”
He nodded.
They took the service elevator down.
The irony was not lost on Beatrice.
Earlier Charles had told her the back elevator was where she belonged.
Now that same elevator carried her toward the evidence that might destroy him.
The basement level was mostly storage.
Metal shelves.
Old files.
Inactive servers.
No chandeliers.
No champagne.
Beatrice preferred it immediately.
She found the backup accounting terminal behind a locked records door.
Her employee badge opened it.
Inside, one fluorescent light flickered.
Dante remained near the entrance.
Beatrice powered up the terminal.
“This machine stores ninety days of authentication records.”
“Enough?”
“If whoever did this started recently.”
“And if they didn't?”
“Then we're guessing.”
The screen loaded.
She entered her credentials.
A list appeared.
Beatrice searched the Moretti account.
Hundreds of lines filled the monitor.
Then she saw it.
A master authorization sequence.
She leaned closer.
“There.”
Dante moved beside her.
“What is it?”
“The source account controlling all the fake approvals.”
“Whose?”
Beatrice clicked.
ACCESS RESTRICTED.
She tried a secondary command.
The system opened a partial administrator profile.
Initials appeared.
Not CW.
Not VL.
BG.
Beatrice stopped.
Dante stared at the screen.
“Those are your initials.”
“I didn't create this.”
A new field loaded beneath it.
ADMINISTRATOR NAME: BEATRICE GALLAGHER.
Her stomach turned.
Someone had not merely used her employee code.
They had built the entire theft around her identity.
Dante said nothing.
Beatrice looked at him.
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because guilty people run when I walk into a room.”
His gaze held hers.
“You took my hand.”
Before she could answer, footsteps sounded outside.
Dante immediately switched off the monitor.
The room went dark.
The footsteps stopped at the records door.
A key entered the lock.
Beatrice held her breath.
The handle turned.
Someone whispered her name from the other side.
“Beatrice?”
May you like
She recognized the voice.
It belonged to Maggie.
