Chapter 3 - THE DEAD MAN’S ACCOUNTBy midnight, the Moretti building looked less like a corporate headquarters and more like a fortress.
Security sealed every entrance.
Sal was taken to a private hospital.
Vince disappeared.
And Emma discovered that Dante Moretti had decided she was not going home.
“I’m not your prisoner.”
They stood alone in Dante’s office forty floors above Manhattan.
Rain streaked the windows behind him.
“No.”
“Then unlock the elevator.”
“No.”
Emma folded her arms.
“That sounds suspiciously like being a prisoner.”
“Someone fired through a window five feet from your head.”
“Technically, they fired through a wall.”
“That distinction is why I’m reconsidering whether you’re brilliant or insane.”
“People often confuse the two.”
Dante almost smiled.
Almost.
Then his expression hardened again.
“My father died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“Heart attack.”
“That’s what the death certificate says.”
His eyes narrowed.
Emma opened her laptop.
Jack Caldwell had hidden more than paper.
The letter contained a sequence of numbers Emma had assumed was meaningless when she first found it.
Now she understood.
It was an account key.
Within twenty minutes she found an inactive financial account registered through a holding company in Delaware.
The owner had died six years earlier.
Carlo Moretti.
But the account had been accessed three weeks ago.
Dante stared at the screen.
“That’s impossible.”
“Dead men usually have terrible internet habits.”
“Emma.”
“I’m nervous. Sarcasm helps.”
The transaction history showed something stranger.
For years, the account had remained untouched.
Then, three weeks ago, someone transferred $250,000 to a company called Bellweather Consulting.
Emma searched deeper.
Bellweather did not exist in any meaningful way.
No employees.
No real office.
Just a mailing address in Brooklyn.
Dante called one of his men.
“Find out who owns Bellweather.”
Emma kept working.
Minutes later, another discovery appeared.
Bellweather had made a payment that morning.
To the same outside address receiving Dante’s stolen emails.
Vince’s leak.
Emma leaned back.
“So Vince wasn’t working alone.”
Dante looked toward the city.
“My father created the system.”
“And somebody kept using it after he died.”
“Who?”
Emma stared at him.
“Someone who knew your father’s secrets.”
Dante’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Emma watched him.
“When?”
A pause.
“Keep him alive.”
He ended the call.
“Vince?”
Dante nodded.
“They found his car under the Williamsburg Bridge.”
“Body?”
“No.”
“Blood?”
“Yes.”
Emma stood.
“We need to find him.”
“We?”
“Vince knows what happened to my father.”
Dante stepped closer.
“And whoever shot at us knows you have Jack’s evidence.”
“I’ve spent ten years being afraid of the wrong people. I’m done.”
For several seconds, they simply looked at each other.
The hostility between them had changed.
Not disappeared.
Changed.
Dante had spent years believing Jack Caldwell betrayed his family.
Emma had spent years believing the Morettis destroyed hers.
Now both stories were collapsing simultaneously.
“You came here intentionally,” Dante said.
“Yes.”
“You took a job three floors below my office eight months ago.”
“Yes.”
“You waited.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“For Vince to make a mistake.”
“And if he hadn’t?”
“I would’ve waited longer.”
Dante studied her with something approaching admiration.
“You’re dangerous.”
Emma closed the laptop.
“No. I’m patient.”
His phone buzzed.
A message.
A photograph appeared.
Vince sat tied to a chair.
His face was bloody.
Beside him was a digital clock counting down from fifty-nine minutes.
Underneath were seven words.
BRING JACK CALDWELL’S ORIGINAL LEDGER. COME ALONE.
Emma stared.
Another message arrived.
This one was addressed directly to her.
Your father made the same mistake.
Dante reached for the phone.
Emma caught his hand.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
“They asked for me.”
“They asked for the ledger.”
“They contacted my number.”
“Which means they know who you are.”
“I figured that out around the time they mentioned my dead father.”
Dante stepped closer.
“You don’t understand these people.”
Emma looked up at him.
“Your family destroyed my father’s reputation, my mother spent her last years afraid to answer the door, and I grew up being told Jack Caldwell was a thief. Don’t tell me I don’t understand what people like this can do.”
Something in Dante’s face softened.
Only briefly.
Then he handed her the phone.
“Fine.”
She blinked.
“Fine?”
“You go.”
Emma became suspicious immediately.
“That was too easy.”
“You’re going with me.”
“The message says alone.”
Dante opened a cabinet behind his desk.
Inside were weapons.
Emma stared.
“Subtle.”
“I’m Italian.”
“That is not a legal defense.”
For the first time, Dante actually smiled.
It vanished almost immediately.
Twenty minutes later they were heading toward Brooklyn.
But neither knew the photograph had contained one more clue.
Reflected in the metal leg of Vince’s chair was a face.
A man Emma recognized.
A man who had attended her father’s funeral.
A man who had hugged twelve-year-old Emma afterward and promised that Jack Caldwell had been a good man.
Her father’s closest friend.
May you like
Thomas Reed.
And Thomas had supposedly died eight years ago.
Related Stories
