Chapter 3 - The Man Who Knew Too Much
The alarm split the air.
Red lights flashed above the door, and a recorded voice instructed everyone to evacuate the building. Somewhere in the hallway, a child began crying.
Sophia grabbed my wrist.
"Don't let him take me."
I had heard my wife speak in anger, laughter, frustration, and grief. I had never heard her sound like that.
Not once in four years.
I stood immediately.
"You're not going anywhere with him."
Natalie rushed to the bedside and disconnected Sophia's IV from its portable stand.
"There's a service stairwell at the end of this corridor," she said. "We need to move before the elevators lock."
I looked at Sophia.
"Can you walk?"
She nodded, then tried to stand.
Her knees buckled.
I caught her before she hit the floor.
For months, I had imagined holding her again. I had never imagined feeling how little she weighed in my arms.
"I've got you," I whispered.
She stiffened at the words.
I deserved that reaction.
Natalie helped us into the hallway. We moved toward the stairwell while hospital staff guided patients toward the main exits. I kept Sophia close, shielding her with my body whenever the crowd pressed around us.
At the landing, my phone vibrated.
Mateo.
I ignored the first call.
The second came immediately.
On the third, I answered.
"Where are you?" he demanded.
"At the hospital."
"I know that. The building is being evacuated. Security says Sophia's room is empty."
His concern sounded convincing.
It always had.
"Why were you requesting her medical file?"
A pause.
"I was trying to help. You told me you wanted answers."
"I didn't authorize you to access her records."
"Dom, listen to me. She's been missing for four months. We don't know what she's involved in."
"What she's involved in?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Then choose your words carefully."
His voice softened.
"You're emotional. I understand. But Sophia may be dangerous right now. We have evidence she transferred money from the charity into an account under her control."
I glanced at Sophia.
She heard every word.
"Don't contact me again until I call you," I said.
"Dominic—"
I ended the call.
Sophia watched me with an expression I couldn't read.
"That sounded different," she said.
"How?"
"You didn't defend him."
I had no answer.
We reached the lower level and slipped through a fire door into a service corridor. Natalie led us to a staff exit near the loading dock.
Rain fell in silver sheets beyond the glass.
"I have a car around the corner," I said.
Sophia shook her head.
"Not one registered to you. Not one your company can track."
I stared at her.
"You think my own company is monitoring my vehicles?"
"I think Mateo has access to more information than you realize."
Natalie gave us a set of plain gray coats from a supply closet.
"There's a public garage two blocks east. Don't use the hospital entrance."
Before she left, Sophia caught her hand.
"Thank you."
Natalie squeezed her fingers.
"Your husband needs to see the evidence before he decides what to believe."
Then she looked at me.
"And you need to understand that being sorry won't undo what happened."
She returned inside.
Sophia and I walked through the rain without speaking.
At the garage, I called a former security consultant who had worked for my father. His name was Arthur Kane, and he had retired years ago after a dispute with the company's board.
He answered on the second ring.
"Dominic?"
"I need a car, a secure location, and no connection to Rossi Logistics."
A long silence followed.
"Has Mateo finally made his move?"
My stomach tightened.
"You know about him?"
"I know enough to tell you not to discuss this over the phone."
Twenty-five minutes later, a dark blue sedan pulled into the garage. Arthur was behind the wheel.
He was sixty-three, broad-shouldered, and still moved like a man who expected trouble to appear from any direction.
He opened the rear door.
When he saw Sophia, his expression softened.
"Mrs. Rossi. I'm glad you're alive."
She climbed inside.
"You knew?"
"Not where you were. Only that you were in danger."
Arthur drove us to a modest apartment above a closed tailor shop in Lincoln Park. The place had no company logo, no smart-home system, and no electronic locks connected to a network.
Sophia sat on the edge of the sofa while I examined the brass key.
"Daniel Price," I said. "Tell me everything."
She rubbed her hands together.
"Daniel was a safety supervisor at one of your South Side warehouses. Three months before I disappeared, a loading platform collapsed. He was badly injured, and another worker lost his life."
I remembered the incident. Mateo had called it an unfortunate mechanical failure.
"The investigation found that maintenance records had been falsified," Sophia continued. "Daniel discovered the original reports. They showed that the platform had been flagged for repair twice."
"Why didn't he report it?"
"He did. The reports disappeared."
A cold sensation spread through my chest.
"How did the charity become involved?"
"Harbor Relief paid the medical expenses of injured workers. I noticed that several claims had been rejected even though the workers qualified. When I investigated, I found payments going to companies that had no connection to medical care."
"Companies Mateo controlled?"
"Indirectly. We traced some of them to a holding company with a registered address in Indiana."
I leaned forward.
"And Daniel?"
"He copied the maintenance records before they were altered. He told me he would testify if someone could protect his family."
"Where is he now?"
Sophia's lips trembled.
"I don't know."
"Is he dead?"
"I don't know, Dom."
Her voice broke on the last word.
I reached toward her, then stopped.
She noticed.
For the first time, she held out her hand.
I took it carefully.
"I should have listened," I said.
"Yes."
"I should have investigated Mateo."
"Yes."
"I should never have believed those photographs without asking you what they meant."
Her eyes shone.
"Yes."
Each answer hurt because she wasn't trying to punish me. She was telling the truth.
I lowered my forehead to our joined hands.
"I'm sorry."
Sophia didn't forgive me.
But she didn't pull away.
Arthur entered the room carrying an old laptop.
"I found something you should see."
He placed it on the table and turned the screen toward us.
It showed a list of payments from a Rossi Logistics account. Several were dated after Sophia disappeared.
One payment was for $79,600.
The same amount Mateo had accused Sophia of stealing.
Another payment had been made two days earlier.
The recipient was a private security firm.
The authorization field displayed my name.
I stared at the screen.
"I never approved this."
Arthur zoomed in.
"The authorization came from your executive access token."
"Mateo has a delegated token for emergency transactions."
"Not this one," Arthur said. "This was issued from a device registered to your home office."
Sophia slowly released my hand.
"Someone had access to your study."
I remembered the night she disappeared. The alarm had gone off. The study door had been open. Her engagement ring had been left beside our bed.
I had thought she had abandoned me.
But what if the scene had been arranged?
Arthur opened another file.
"This is the security log from your house on July 14."
One entry appeared at 8:42 p.m.
AUTHORIZED ACCESS: DOMINIC ROSSI.
I looked at the timestamp.
At 8:42 p.m., I had been sitting in a restaurant with Mateo, discussing a contract.
Someone had entered my house using my credentials.
Then another entry appeared.
CAMERA SYSTEM OVERRIDE: M. BELL.
Sophia went white.
Arthur looked at me.
"Dominic, your wife wasn't the only person who disappeared that night."
He clicked the next file.
A photograph appeared.
It showed Daniel Price standing outside the warehouse three days before the accident.
Beside him was Mateo Bell.
May you like
And behind them, unmistakably visible through the open loading bay, was my father's old black sedan.
A car that had been declared destroyed eleven years earlier.
