Chapter 3 - THE SECRET IN HER SKETCHBOOK
By noon, Khloe understood two things.
First, Vincent Costa owned an absurd number of black vehicles.
Second, nobody at his estate knew how to explain anything normally.
A security man named Gabriel had informed her that her car was “temporarily unavailable.”
The mechanic had called it “a hydraulic issue.”
Vincent had called both men terrible liars.
Then he told Khloe the truth.
Her brake line had been cut.
She sat at the enormous kitchen island staring at him.
“Paulie tried to kill me?”
“We don't know that.”
“You think someone else broke into the company garage, cut my brakes, and then Paulie coincidentally sent me driving through a storm?”
Vincent leaned against the counter.
“You're surprisingly sarcastic when terrified.”
“It's cheaper than therapy.”
There it was again.
That strange, dry humor he'd never noticed at the office.
Vincent wondered how much else he'd failed to notice.
“Until I know what's happening, you'll stay here.”
Khloe nearly dropped her coffee.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“In your house?”
“Yes.”
“With you?”
Vincent raised an eyebrow.
“There are thirty-two rooms.”
“That somehow makes it worse.”
“Why?”
“Because nobody needs thirty-two rooms unless they're hiding either a cult or an alarming number of Christmas decorations.”
Gabriel coughed to disguise a laugh.
Vincent gave him a look.
Gabriel immediately left.
Khloe's smile disappeared when Vincent placed the fraudulent transfer papers before her.
“Have you seen these companies?”
She examined the names.
Marlowe Holdings.
Severn Maritime.
Blue Cardinal Development.
“No.”
Then she stopped.
Blue Cardinal.
Something tugged at her memory.
Vincent noticed.
“What?”
“I've seen that logo.”
“Where?”
Khloe frowned.
“I don't remember.”
“Think.”
The command came too sharply.
She flinched.
Vincent regretted it instantly.
“Take your time.”
Khloe looked at him, surprised by the correction.
Then she closed her eyes.
Blue bird.
Gold circle.
A stylized letter C.
Her eyes opened.
“My sketchbook.”
Vincent stared.
“Your what?”
“I draw during lunch.”
“You have a degree in art history.”
“Yes.”
“And you spend lunch drawing shipping logos?”
“Some people have hobbies, Mr. Costa.”
Twenty minutes later, Gabriel retrieved Khloe's bag from her car.
Inside was a battered leather sketchbook.
Vincent opened it carefully.
He expected flowers.
Portraits.
Maybe architecture.
Instead he found astonishing pencil drawings of ordinary life.
A tired janitor sleeping on the subway.
A woman feeding pigeons.
A little boy pressing both hands against an aquarium window.
Then Vincent found himself.
He stopped.
Khloe nearly died.
“You drew me.”
“I draw everyone.”
“I'm holding a stapler.”
“You looked angry at it.”
“I probably was.”
Gabriel turned away before Vincent saw his grin.
Khloe snatched the book.
“Blue Cardinal.”
She flipped backward.
Then found it.
Three months earlier, while eating lunch near the loading docks, she'd sketched a truck because she liked the antique bird emblem painted on its door.
Beneath it she'd written a license plate.
Vincent looked at Gabriel.
“Run it.”
Ten minutes later, they had an owner.
Daniel Voss.
Vincent's chief financial officer.
The man who had handled Costa Logistics' legitimate books for nine years.
Khloe's face fell.
“Mr. Voss?”
Vincent said nothing.
Daniel had been at Vincent's father's funeral.
He had helped restructure the company after federal audits.
He knew every legal account Vincent possessed.
And every illegal one.
The betrayal cut deeper than Vincent allowed his face to show.
Khloe saw it anyway.
“I'm sorry.”
Vincent looked at her.
“For what?”
“You trusted him.”
Nobody spoke to Vincent like that.
Not about trust.
Not about pain.
Especially not employees.
He took the sketchbook from her again.
“When did you draw this?”
“June eighteenth.”
Vincent remembered that day.
A shipment had vanished.
Three containers worth nearly $2 million.
Daniel blamed a clerical error.
The truck in Khloe's drawing had been parked beside the missing containers.
A coincidence was becoming a pattern.
By evening, Vincent had moved Khloe into a guest suite across the hall from his own room.
She stood inside its doorway.
The bedroom was larger than her apartment.
“This is ridiculous.”
“It's secure.”
“There are decorative pillows that appear to have their own decorative pillows.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“You complain frequently for someone who's afraid of me.”
“I contain multitudes.”
He turned to leave.
“Mr. Costa?”
He looked back.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not firing me.”
Vincent stared at her.
Then at the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“Get some sleep, Khloe.”
It was the first time he'd used her first name.
She noticed.
So did he.
Vincent left before either could acknowledge it.
At 2:11 a.m., an alarm sounded.
Vincent was awake instantly.
He crossed the hallway barefoot, weapon in hand.
Khloe's bedroom door was open.
The bed was empty.
His pulse changed.
“Khloe!”
No answer.
He moved downstairs.
Security lights illuminated the grounds.
Gabriel's voice came through the radio.
“Perimeter breach. East side.”
Vincent entered the kitchen.
A shattered glass lay on the floor.
Then he saw blood.
One red drop.
Another.
Leading toward the pantry.
Vincent ripped open the door.
Khloe stood inside gripping a kitchen knife.
Her hand was bleeding.
And at her feet lay a man dressed in black.
Unconscious.
Vincent stared.
Khloe's entire body shook.
“He came through the window.”
Vincent lowered his gun.
“You knocked him out?”
Khloe looked at the cast-iron skillet on the floor.
“He surprised me.”
Vincent stared at the intruder.
Then at the tiny secretary holding a chef's knife with both hands.
Something dangerously close to pride moved through him.
Gabriel rushed in.
Vincent knelt beside the unconscious man and searched his pockets.
He found no identification.
Only a phone.
And a photograph.
Khloe at the office.
Taken through a telephoto lens.
On the back was a handwritten message.
Vincent read it once.
His expression became terrifyingly calm.
Khloe whispered, “What does it say?”
Vincent didn't answer.
She took the photograph.
Three words were written beneath her face.
THE GIRL REMEMBERS.
Khloe looked up.
“I don't understand.”
Vincent did.
They weren't trying to kill her because of what she knew.
May you like
They were trying to kill her because of something they believed she had seen.
And somewhere inside Khloe Evans' memory was a secret worth murdering her to protect.
