Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the House
The mansion transformed in seconds.
Emergency lights glowed red along the hallway.
Security doors locked automatically.
Roman pushed Joan and Betty into a reinforced dressing room while shouting commands into his radio.
“North perimeter. Report.”
Static.
“West gate?”
Nothing.
Roman’s expression darkened.
Somebody had disabled internal communications.
This was not an attack from outside.
Someone had prepared it from within.
Betty trembled against Joan.
Joan crouched despite the pain in her ribs.
“Remember the restaurant?”
Betty nodded.
“What did we do?”
“Stayed down.”
“Exactly.”
Roman looked at Joan.
Something unspoken passed between them.
Trust.
He left.
For 11 agonizing minutes Joan heard footsteps, distant shouting, then another gunshot.
Finally the emergency lights changed from red to white.
Roman returned.
Blood stained his palm.
Betty ran to him.
“You’re hurt!”
“Just glass.”
The intruder had escaped.
One security guard had been found unconscious near the generator room.
Another had disappeared entirely.
His name was Victor Hale.
Roman’s security chief.
The same man who had worked for Roman for 9 years.
“He knows everything,” Roman said.
“Your schedules?”
“Yes.”
“Betty’s school?”
“Yes.”
“Caroline’s room?”
Roman looked at her.
“Yes.”
Joan understood.
Victor could have stolen the book.
Morning brought another surprise.
Marianne appeared at the gate.
Joan ran outside before anyone could stop her.
Her mother looked 10 years older than she had the last time Joan saw her.
They embraced.
Then Marianne saw Roman.
“You.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“Have we met?”
“No. But Caroline told me enough.”
Inside the study, Marianne finally told the truth.
Caroline had discovered that someone inside Roman’s legitimate logistics empire was laundering money through shell companies and using company routes to move illegal weapons.
Roman stared at her.
“My company?”
“She believed you didn’t know.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She was going to.”
Marianne looked down.
“But she didn’t know whom she could trust.”
Caroline had begun collecting records.
Victor discovered it.
She gave Marianne a notebook and the necklace shortly before her death.
“What happened to the notebook?” Roman demanded.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
Marianne looked at Joan.
“In something nobody would steal.”
Joan suddenly understood.
“My apartment.”
Her mother nodded.
“The old cookbook I gave you.”
Joan remembered it instantly.
A thick, ugly cookbook she never used.
The people who searched her apartment had been looking for it.
“Was it still there?”
Joan thought about the morning.
She had used it to prop up the broken leg of her kitchen table.
She almost laughed.
“Yes.”
Roman immediately sent men to retrieve it.
Two hours later, the cookbook sat on his desk.
Inside its hollowed pages was a black notebook.
Caroline’s handwriting filled every page.
Names.
Account numbers.
Dates.
Shipments.
And one repeated set of initials.
V.H.
Victor Hale.
But the final pages contained something worse.
Caroline believed Victor was not working alone.
He answered to someone Roman trusted even more.
Someone identified only as “M.”
Roman’s face changed.
“I know who M is.”
Joan waited.
“My uncle.”
Michael Seagull had helped raise Roman after his father died.
He was also vice chairman of Roman’s company.
Before anyone could speak, Roman’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Victor’s voice came through.
“You found the notebook.”
Roman’s eyes turned cold.
“What do you want?”
“What we wanted 4 years ago.”
Roman’s hand tightened.
“You killed Caroline.”
“No.”
Victor laughed softly.
“That’s the tragedy, Roman. I tried to stop it.”
“Who killed my wife?”
“You already know.”
Roman looked toward Caroline’s notebook.
Michael.
Then Victor said something none of them expected.
“And the waitress?”
Roman’s eyes shifted to Joan.
“What about her?”
“You should ask Marianne why Caroline chose her.”
Marianne went pale.
Victor continued.
“Because Joan wasn’t some random waitress who happened to save Betty.”
Joan stared at her mother.
Victor laughed once.
“Tell her, Marianne.”
The call disconnected.
Roman looked at Marianne.
Joan did too.
“What is he talking about?”
Her mother began to cry.
“Joan…”
“What?”
Marianne reached for her.
Joan stepped away.
“Tell me.”
May you like
Marianne whispered:
“Caroline was your sister.”
