Chapter 7 - THE TRAITOR AT THE TABLE
They reached the Solvay estate in twenty-three minutes.
Smoke rose behind the eastern wing.
Not another fire.
A diversion.
The security room had been breached.
Mrs. Calder was alive, shaken but unharmed.
Three guards were injured.
The server containing Lucian’s private records was gone.
Lucian stood in the ruined security room with a silence Mireille now understood.
His anger became quieter as it became more dangerous.
“Who had access?” she asked.
“Seven people.”
“Then start with seven.”
He looked at her.
“You’re remarkably calm.”
“I’m not calm.”
“You look calm.”
“I spent fourteen years looking calm.”
That answer silenced him.
Mireille examined the room.
Broken monitors.
A smashed cabinet.
Blood.
Then something caught her eye.
A footprint in ash.
She crouched.
Lucian joined her.
“What?”
“The intruder stepped in soot.”
“So?”
“So the fire started after he entered.”
Lucian looked toward the burned eastern hallway.
She continued.
“If he had come through there, both shoes would be covered. Only his right heel is marked.”
Lucian understood.
“He was already inside.”
“Yes.”
They reviewed the seven names.
Mireille knew only one.
Adrian Kessler.
Lucian’s closest lieutenant.
He had been at the hospital.
He had also been at the private club.
“He knew our movements,” Mireille said.
Lucian’s face gave nothing away.
“Adrian has worked for me eleven years.”
“That isn’t evidence of innocence.”
“No.”
“Do you trust him?”
Lucian took too long.
Mireille had her answer.
They set a trap.
Lucian privately told each suspect a different location for the duplicate evidence.
Then they waited.
Three hours later, men arrived at a storage facility in Queens.
The location Lucian had given only Adrian.
Lucian watched the surveillance feed.
Something inside his face closed.
“Bring him in.”
Adrian arrived thirty minutes later.
He saw the footage.
He did not deny it.
“Why?” Lucian asked.
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Because you inherited everything.”
“My parents were murdered.”
“And mine worked themselves into graves.”
“That doesn’t explain Victor.”
“He paid.”
Lucian stared at him.
“Eleven years.”
“Eleven years of watching you pretend you’re different from every other man with blood on his hands.”
Mireille watched Lucian carefully.
Adrian turned toward her.
“And then she appeared.”
Lucian stepped between them.
Adrian smiled.
“There. That. You never used to have a weakness.”
Mireille’s pulse changed.
Lucian’s voice was cold.
“She isn’t a weakness.”
“Everyone is, eventually.”
Adrian leaned back.
“Victor knows where the original ledger is.”
Lucian froze.
“What original ledger?”
“The one Celeste hid before the fire.”
Mireille remembered the red door.
The memory hit suddenly.
Not a door.
A locker.
Red metal.
Her mother kneeling.
“Mireille?”
She looked at Lucian.
“I know where it is.”
Building Seven no longer existed.
But its foundation did.
The property had never been redeveloped because of soil contamination.
They arrived after midnight.
Mireille walked across cracked concrete beneath portable lights.
Fourteen years vanished.
She smelled smoke that was not there.
Her breathing shortened.
Lucian noticed.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Mireille.”
She looked at him.
For once, he did not command.
He offered his hand.
She took it.
Together they entered the remaining basement structure.
The red locker was buried behind a collapsed wall.
Inside was a waterproof case.
Lucian forced it open.
A ledger lay inside.
Mireille almost laughed from relief.
Then headlights appeared above them.
Too many.
Lucian swore.
Victor Dane stepped from a black SUV.
He had escaped police custody during transport.
Adrian had arranged it before being caught.
Victor held Margaux by the arm.
A gun pressed against her side.
Mireille stopped.
Margaux looked terrified.
Victor smiled.
“Give me the ledger.”
Lucian raised his weapon.
Victor pressed the gun harder against Margaux.
“Try it.”
Mireille held the ledger.
Lucian whispered, “Don’t.”
She looked at him.
Then at her sister.
Margaux shook her head.
Mireille walked forward anyway.
“Mireille!”
She ignored Lucian.
Victor smiled.
“That’s right.”
Mireille stopped ten feet away.
“You always underestimated the ugly sister.”
Victor’s smile faltered.
Mireille threw the ledger.
Not toward Victor.
Into an open drainage trench.
Victor instinctively turned.
Margaux drove her heel into his foot.
Lucian fired.
Victor’s gun flew from his hand.
Chaos erupted.
Security rushed forward.
Mireille ran to Margaux.
Lucian tackled Victor against the concrete.
Police sirens approached.
Victor laughed even as officers dragged him away.
“You think this ends with me?”
Lucian grabbed his coat.
“It does for you.”
Victor looked past him.
Straight at Mireille.
May you like
Then smiled.
“Ask her father why he really owed four million dollars.”
