Chapter 3 - HER MOTHER’S LEDGERVincent read Evelyn Flannery’s old personnel file twice.
Then a third time.
“You knew her?” Aleandro asked.
“No.”
Vincent had been twenty-four when Evelyn died, still fighting his way through the internal war that followed his father’s assassination.
Evelyn had worked under Vincent’s uncle, Dominic Costa.
Senior accounting analyst.
Trusted access.
Then she disappeared from the payroll.
Official reason:
Resignation.
Three weeks later, she died in what police described as a single-car accident.
Vincent looked up.
“Who authorized the resignation paperwork?”
Aleandro checked.
“Dominic.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Uncle Dominic had died four years earlier.
Convenient.
“What ledger did she steal?”
“We don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Aleandro placed another file down.
“Your father’s old books mention an unrecovered ledger during the transition period. Accounts, payments, names of public officials. Apparently Evelyn copied it.”
“And nobody found it.”
“No.”
Vincent looked toward the estate gardens.
Charmian was outside.
Books under one arm.
Leaving for class.
She knew nothing.
Or pretended to know nothing.
“Petrov.”
Aleandro nodded.
“Anton claims Tommy approached them first.”
“For forty thousand?”
“Initially five.”
“Then?”
“Tommy kept borrowing.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Someone encouraged it.”
“Probably.”
“To pressure Charmian.”
“Probably.”
“Why now?”
That was the question.
Evelyn had been dead five years.
Why suddenly hunt for the ledger?
Vincent called Charmian into his office after class.
She arrived carrying a backpack.
“You said school came first.”
“It does.”
“Then why am I here?”
Vincent held up a photograph.
Evelyn Flannery.
Charmian stopped.
“Where did you get that?”
“You recognize her.”
“My mother.”
“She worked for my family.”
Charmian stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She worked for an insurance company.”
“That may be what she told you.”
Charmian stepped toward the desk.
“My mother hated criminals.”
Vincent’s expression barely changed.
“Reasonable position.”
“She would never work for you.”
“She didn’t work for me.”
He pushed the employment record forward.
“She worked for my uncle.”
Charmian read it.
Her hands began trembling.
“No.”
“Charmian.”
“No.”
She pushed the file away.
“My mother didn’t lie to me.”
Vincent remained quiet.
That made her angrier.
“She didn’t.”
“Maybe she protected you.”
“I don’t need everyone protecting me!”
Her voice cracked across the office.
Vincent let the silence settle.
Charmian realized she had shouted at a man people crossed streets to avoid.
She lowered her eyes.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for being angry.”
She looked at him.
“Why are you showing me this?”
“Because your mother took something before she died.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised her.
“But somebody else may not.”
Vincent explained his theory.
The Petrovs.
Tommy’s suspicious debt.
The pressure on Charmian.
When he finished, she looked sick.
“So this wasn’t about Tommy?”
“Some of it probably was.”
“And the rest?”
“Someone may have been waiting for you to lead them to whatever Evelyn hid.”
Charmian sat slowly.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
Vincent said nothing.
She noticed.
“What?”
“We’re reopening the police file.”
Her chair scraped backward.
“No.”
“I need to know whether—”
“No.”
She stood.
“You don’t get to turn my mother into one of your investigations.”
“If someone killed her—”
“She died.”
Tears filled Charmian’s eyes.
“I spent five years learning how to live with that sentence.”
Vincent stopped.
For once, he had no useful answer.
Charmian wiped her face angrily.
“You don’t get to make me wonder again.”
Then she left.
Vincent let her.
That evening, she did not come to dinner.
At midnight, she had not returned from class.
At 12:30, Vincent called.
No answer.
At 12:34, Aleandro entered.
“Her phone went offline.”
Vincent stood.
“Where?”
“Campus parking garage.”
The same garage where the Petrovs had assaulted her.
They reached St. Jude’s in seventeen minutes.
Charmian’s backpack lay beside her car.
The driver’s door was open.
No Charmian.
Vincent crouched.
A small smear of blood marked the concrete.
Aleandro swore.
Then Vincent saw something beneath the car.
A photograph.
Charmian as a child beside her mother.
Written across Evelyn’s face:
WHERE IS THE BOOK?
Vincent rose.
“Lock down every road.”
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“Find Anton Petrov.”
“Boss—”
“Now.”
Anton answered on the second call.
“I didn’t touch her.”
Vincent said nothing.
“I swear.”
“Then find who did.”
Anton hesitated.
“There’s a man asking questions.”
“Name.”
“Gideon Vale.”
Vincent went still.
Aleandro heard.
His expression changed.
Gideon Vale had once been Vincent’s father’s closest adviser.
Then he vanished after the old Costa war.
Everyone assumed he was dead.
Apparently everyone had been wrong.
Anton continued.
“He’s offering five million dollars for Evelyn Flannery’s ledger.”
Vincent looked at the photograph in his hand.
Five million.
Nobody paid five million for old accounting records unless those records contained something worth far more.
His phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Charmian sat tied to a chair.
Bruised.
Terrified.
Alive.
Beneath it:
BRING ME WHAT HER MOTHER STOLE.
Vincent typed back.
I DON’T HAVE IT.
The response arrived immediately.
THEN FIND IT.
A second photograph appeared.
This one showed a clock.
Six hours.
Vincent stared at Charmian’s frightened face.
Aleandro said quietly, “We don’t know where the ledger is.”
Vincent slid the phone into his pocket.
“No.”
May you like
He looked toward Charmian’s abandoned backpack.
“But she might.”
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