Chapter 2 - The Name She Was Afraid to Say
Elena hesitated.
Adrian noticed immediately.
Not because she looked guilty.
Because she looked afraid.
There was a difference.
“Name,” he repeated.
Elena pushed herself upright on the sofa and reached for her laptop.
Adrian placed one hand over it before she could close the screen.
Her eyes rose to his.
“Don’t.”
It was a quiet word.
Not frightened.
A warning.
Adrian almost admired it.
“You entered my restricted archive with fraudulent credentials.”
“And I found nearly seven million dollars being stolen from your company.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“No, but it should affect the order in which you ask them.”
Marcus turned his face away.
Adrian looked at him.
“Something amusing?”
“No, sir.”
Elena sighed.
“The access request came from Laura Whitcomb.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
Marcus’s did too.
Elena noticed.
“Who is she?”
“My chief financial officer,” Adrian said.
Elena blinked.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Laura Whitcomb died eleven months ago.”
Silence.
Thunder rolled beyond the windows.
Adrian stared at Elena.
“What did you say?”
“I checked the authorization signature before coming upstairs. The request was digitally signed by Laura E. Whitcomb.”
Marcus was already reaching for his phone.
Adrian’s voice became quiet.
“Show me.”
Elena opened her audit portal.
The request was there.
Access authorization.
Restricted fuel-contract review.
Authorized by Laura E. Whitcomb.
Adrian read it twice.
Laura had served as Vale Meridian’s CFO for thirteen years.
She had died when her SUV left an icy road near Lake Geneva.
Adrian had attended the funeral.
He had carried her coffin.
Now her credentials had apparently opened his archive.
“Could someone have cloned her signature?” Elena asked.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Adrian looked at Marcus.
“Pull every authentication event associated with Laura’s credentials since her death.”
Marcus left.
Elena began gathering her papers.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
“No.”
Her head snapped up.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re staying.”
“You cannot detain an outside auditor.”
“I can if someone used a dead executive’s credentials to place that auditor inside a restricted room containing evidence of internal theft.”
Elena stood.
Barefoot.
Adrian’s gaze dropped briefly to the shoe still lying beside the sofa.
She noticed.
“Could I at least put my shoe on before being illegally detained?”
He picked it up and handed it to her.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
She slipped it on.
Then she frowned.
“Why are you being polite?”
Adrian almost smiled.
“Would you prefer threatening?”
“No.”
“Then don’t complain.”
She stared at him.
“You’re very strange.”
“People usually use different adjectives.”
“I know what people call you.”
That stopped him.
“What do they call me?”
Elena looked toward the closed archive door.
“I don’t think repeating it while locked inside your secret office demonstrates strong survival instincts.”
Adrian smiled then.
Actually smiled.
Elena seemed startled.
It disappeared quickly.
“Tell me about Ashbourne Trust,” he said.
“I traced twenty-three transfers there. They were disguised as maintenance payments. Every amount was kept below an internal secondary-review threshold.”
“You noticed that in three days?”
“Two.”
“What happened to the third?”
“Warren Pike made me rebuild a depreciation schedule because he didn’t like the formatting.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Your supervisor.”
“Yes.”
“He knows about the discrepancy?”
Elena went quiet.
Adrian understood.
“You told him.”
“I’m an auditor. I report findings to my supervising partner.”
“When?”
“Yesterday morning.”
“And what did Pike say?”
“That I was overinterpreting routine intercompany transfers.”
“Did he tell you to stop investigating?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
Elena gestured toward the room.
“Clearly, obedience is another professional skill I failed to develop.”
Adrian studied her.
“Why keep digging?”
She hesitated.
“Because somebody wanted me not to.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
Her eyes moved toward the laptop.
“Because the numbers looked familiar.”
Adrian waited.
Elena’s voice changed.
“Four years ago, I was a junior forensic accountant at another firm. I found a similar diversion pattern inside a manufacturing company.”
“What happened?”
“I reported it.”
“And?”
“My supervisor altered my work papers before they reached regulators.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“What happened to him?”
“He became a partner.”
“And you?”
“I became unemployed.”
That explained something.
The careful clothes.
The defensiveness.
The way she corrected Warren Pike in the meeting despite knowing he could punish her for it.
“I spent eighteen months trying to prove what happened,” Elena continued. “Nobody cared. The company collapsed. Four hundred people lost their jobs. The executives walked away with bonuses.”
She met Adrian’s eyes.
“So when someone tells me not to look at numbers that don’t make sense, I look harder.”
Adrian leaned against the table.
“You realize the irony.”
“What irony?”
“You’re telling a man widely suspected of running organized crime that you have an unusually strong commitment to financial ethics.”
Elena’s mouth twitched.
“I was trying not to mention that.”
A knock sounded.
Marcus returned.
He did not look calm.
“We found nineteen authentication events using Laura Whitcomb’s credentials after her death.”
Adrian straightened.
“Locations?”
“Mostly internal.”
“Whose terminals?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Three came from Warren Pike’s temporary audit credentials.”
Elena’s face changed.
“What?”
“And six,” Marcus continued, “came from Dominic Vale’s private office.”
Adrian’s eyes turned cold.
“Where is my uncle?”
“According to his security detail, at home.”
“According to his actual location?”
Marcus checked his phone.
“No one knows.”
Then every light in the archive went out.
Elena inhaled sharply.
Emergency lamps flickered red.
Adrian heard the locks engage.
Marcus tried the door.
“System override.”
Adrian reached for his phone.
No signal.
Elena whispered, “Is that normal?”
“No.”
A faint mechanical hiss came from the ventilation system.
Adrian smelled it.
Chemical.
He grabbed Elena.
“Cover your mouth.”
“What is that?”
Marcus ripped off his jacket and pressed it against the vent.
Adrian crossed to the emergency panel.
Dead.
Someone had not merely locked them inside.
Someone was pumping gas into the archive.
Elena began coughing.
Adrian pulled her against his chest and covered her nose and mouth with his shirt sleeve.
“Stay awake.”
“I’m trying.”
Her knees weakened.
Marcus smashed a glass cabinet and pulled out an antique fire ax.
“You keep an ax in your archive?”
Adrian looked at him.
“Now seems like an odd time to criticize interior design.”
Marcus swung at the emergency wall panel.
Once.
Twice.
Metal buckled.
Elena sagged against Adrian.
“Adrian…”
It was the first time she had used his first name.
He tightened his arm around her.
“Look at me.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“I’m tired.”
“No.”
“Very persuasive.”
“Elena.”
She smiled weakly.
“Still strange.”
Then she went limp.
Adrian caught her before she hit the floor.
Something inside him changed.
The cold calculation vanished.
“Marcus!”
The ax crashed through the panel.
Behind it was a maintenance shaft.
“Go!”
Marcus climbed through first.
Adrian lifted Elena into his arms.
He followed.
Behind them, the archive filled with gas.
Someone had tried to destroy the evidence.
And kill everyone who had seen it.
Adrian looked down at the unconscious woman against his chest.
She had entered his world three days ago.
May you like
Someone already wanted her dead.
And for reasons he did not yet understand, that thought made him angrier than the six million dollars.
