Chapter 2 - The Woman They Thought Was Nobody
Mia remembered the sound before she remembered the pain.
Metal screaming.
Glass exploding.
Leo crying.
She had been sitting in the third SUV because the storm had shut down the train lines and somebody in transportation decided the downtown audit team could ride with the evening convoy.
Mia hadn’t even known Leo Romano would be in the vehicle.
She had recognized the nanny.
Then she saw the baby seat.
Twenty minutes later, the world came apart beneath an overpass.
The first SUV swerved.
The second slammed sideways.
Their driver shouted something.
Then an impact threw Mia against the door.
Men appeared from the darkness.
Fast.
Organized.
Not street criminals.
One smashed the rear window.
Another opened the door.
The nanny fought.
A man struck her.
Mia remembered screaming.
Then somebody grabbed Leo’s carrier.
She grabbed it too.
“Let go!”
“No!”
The man pulled harder.
Mia kicked him.
Not skillfully.
Not heroically.
She caught his knee because it was the first thing her foot hit.
He cursed.
Another man grabbed Mia by the hair and dragged her out with the baby.
She lost one shoe.
Her shoulder hit pavement.
Pain exploded down her arm.
She still didn’t release the carrier.
Someone yelled, “Take both!”
A hood went over her head.
Then darkness.
In the safe room hours later, Mia woke with Gabriel Romano sitting across from her.
For a terrifying half second, she thought she was still in the warehouse.
Then she saw Leo sleeping in a portable crib.
Her body relaxed.
Gabriel noticed.
“You checked him before you checked yourself.”
Mia swallowed.
“My head hurts.”
“The doctor said it would.”
“What time is it?”
“Four thirty-seven.”
She looked around.
“Why are you still here?”
Gabriel leaned back.
“Because you know what happened.”
“I told Marco.”
“You told Marco pieces.”
“You interrogating me?”
“No.”
“You have an interrogation face.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“What does that look like?”
“Exactly like that.”
A strange silence passed between them.
Gabriel looked almost amused.
Almost.
Then his expression hardened.
“I need you to tell me everything.”
Mia looked at Leo.
“Start where?”
“Where they took you.”
She closed her eyes.
The van had smelled like diesel and wet cardboard.
Her right wrist had been zip-tied to a cargo rail.
Leo lay beside her inside a canvas carrier one of the attackers had thrown into the van.
He cried for twenty straight minutes.
One kidnapper shouted at her to make him stop.
Mia shouted back that babies did not have mute buttons.
He threatened her.
She shut up.
Not because she became obedient.
Because she realized something important.
They weren’t paying attention to her.
The men kept talking.
Names.
Routes.
Money.
They saw an accountant in muddy slacks.
Nobody dangerous.
Mia made herself smaller.
Scared.
Weak.
Forgettable.
It wasn’t difficult because she genuinely was terrified.
Her fingers shook so hard she almost dropped the tiny metal pick hidden inside the seam of her boot.
Her father had been a locksmith in Milwaukee.
He taught her ridiculous things when she was a teenager.
How to open an old pin lock.
How to tell when someone had forced a door.
How to hide emergency cash inside a shoe.
At sixteen, Mia thought it was embarrassing.
At thirty-one, tied inside a kidnapping van with a crying baby beside her, she silently thanked him.
The plastic restraint was easier than a lock.
She worked the pick underneath.
Her wrist bled.
The tie loosened.
She kept it around her hand so they wouldn’t notice.
At the warehouse, they dragged her into an office with Leo.
One guard said, “Sterling wants the kid untouched.”
Another laughed.
“What about her?”
“Who cares? She’s payroll.”
Mia remembered that.
Who cares?
She sat on the floor.
Held Leo.
Waited.
For forty minutes she counted footsteps.
Two guards.
One hallway.
A door opening every seven minutes.
Another door farther away.
She didn’t know where she was.
She did know somebody kept smoking outside because the smell entered through an air vent.
At some point one of the guards said, “Romano paid for the road himself. Easiest job we’ve ever had.”
The other told him to shut up.
That was when Mia understood someone inside Gabriel’s organization had helped them.
She freed her wrist.
Then she waited longer.
Fear begged her to move.
Logic told her not yet.
Eventually there was shouting near the loading bay.
A truck arrived.
Both guards left the hallway.
Mia searched the office.
Nothing useful.
Then she saw the shelving.
Behind it was a red emergency exit sign.
She shifted the shelf inch by inch.
Leo began fussing.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please, sweetheart. Give me thirty seconds.”
For some reason, he did.
The emergency door opened into another corridor.
Mia strapped Leo against her chest using a canvas document sling she found hanging on a hook.
It was ridiculous.
Too big.
Uncomfortable.
But it held him.
She moved.
She was halfway toward the loading bay when a man turned the corner.
They stared at each other.
Mia grabbed the first object she saw.
A fire extinguisher.
He rushed her.
She swung.
The extinguisher struck his shoulder.
Not his head.
Not dramatically.
But hard enough.
He stumbled.
She ran.
Someone shouted.
Gunfire cracked somewhere behind her.
Mia screamed.
Leo screamed.
She found a box truck idling near an open bay.
Keys inside.
Of course she had never driven one.
She drove it anyway.
The first attempt nearly hit a support column.
The second knocked over a stack of pallets.
Men ran toward her.
Mia slammed the accelerator.
The wooden service gate rushed toward the windshield.
She closed one eye.
The truck hit.
Wood exploded.
Then she was outside.
Free.
Almost.
She drove for thirty-two minutes without knowing where she was going.
Her phone was gone.
She didn’t trust police because she had no idea how deep the leak went.
Then she remembered an insurance invoice.
Lincoln Park property.
Romano-owned.
Listed as inactive.
She had reviewed it three years earlier because somebody had double-billed maintenance.
She remembered the address.
Gabriel stared at her.
“You memorized an address from an invoice three years ago.”
Mia shrugged carefully.
“I remember numbers.”
“That isn’t normal.”
“Says the man with a safe room behind a brownstone.”
He almost smiled.
Then she told him about arriving.
Triggering the alarm.
Locking herself inside.
Refusing to open for anyone until Marco arrived.
When she finished, Gabriel remained quiet.
Too quiet.
Mia shifted.
“You asked.”
“I know.”
“So why do you look angry at me?”
“I’m not angry at you.”
“You definitely look angry.”
“I’m angry because you had to do any of that.”
The answer caught her off guard.
Gabriel stood.
“Did they use names?”
“Sterling.”
“Besides him.”
She thought.
“One man called another Ray.”
“Last name?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
Mia frowned.
There had been something.
A conversation outside the office.
She closed her eyes.
One voice had said, “Hale says Romano will go straight to the river.”
She opened them.
“Hale.”
Gabriel became motionless.
“What?”
“One of them said Hale.”
He and Marco exchanged a look.
Mia saw it.
“You know him.”
Gabriel’s voice was flat.
“Victor Hale.”
The name meant something to Mia.
She sat straighter.
“Victor Hale from executive operations?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve seen his authorization.”
“Where?”
“Transfers.”
Gabriel walked closer.
“What transfers?”
Mia rubbed her forehead.
“Small ones.”
“How small?”
“Thirty-eight thousand. Forty-two. Fifty-one.”
Gabriel stared.
“That isn’t small.”
“In Romano Maritime, it is.”
Marco made a sound that might have been agreement.
Mia continued.
“They were coded as vendor retention adjustments. I flagged them two months ago.”
“To who?”
“My supervisor.”
“Name.”
“Peter Colson.”
Gabriel looked at Marco again.
Marco was already typing.
Mia felt an uncomfortable chill.
“What?”
“Peter Colson didn’t show up for work yesterday.”
“So?”
“He flew to Toronto.”
“Vacation?”
“No.”
Mia suddenly wished she hadn’t asked.
Gabriel crouched beside her.
“Why did you flag the transactions?”
“The vendor IDs looked wrong.”
“How?”
“Too clean.”
He waited.
Mia sighed.
“Real vendors are messy. Addresses change. Contact names change. Somebody enters punctuation differently. These were perfect. Every field formatted identically across separate companies.”
“Shell companies.”
“Probably.”
“Can you trace them?”
“If I have system access.”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
“Get her a secure terminal.”
Mia frowned.
“I need sleep.”
“You do.”
“And food.”
“You do.”
“And you’re still going to put a laptop in front of me.”
“Yes.”
She stared.
“You’re awful.”
“I’ve been told.”
She leaned back.
Then her expression changed.
“What?”
“There was one more thing.”
Gabriel waited.
“When I was in the warehouse, one of the men got a call.”
“What did he say?”
“He said they had Leo.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“Then?”
“He listened.”
Mia tried to reconstruct the memory.
“Then he looked at me.”
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“What did he say?”
“He said, ‘No, she wasn’t on the passenger list.’”
Marco stopped typing.
Mia continued.
“Then he said, ‘Yeah. We’ll handle her.’”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“They weren’t expecting you.”
“No.”
“So whoever gave them the route knew Leo was traveling.”
“Yes.”
“But didn’t know the audit team had been added.”
“Correct.”
Gabriel stood.
That narrowed the leak.
Considerably.
Marco checked his tablet.
“Transportation added Mia’s team at nine fifty-four.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“When was the route accessed?”
“Victor’s second login was ten oh-three.”
Mia felt cold.
“So he should have known.”
Marco looked at Gabriel.
“Yes.”
Unless Victor Hale hadn’t been the person using Victor Hale’s account.
At that exact moment, Gabriel’s phone vibrated.
A secure message.
No sender.
One photograph.
Gabriel opened it.
Mia watched every trace of warmth disappear from his face.
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
She stood despite the pain.
“Gabriel.”
He turned the phone.
The image showed Mia leaving Romano headquarters three days earlier.
Taken from across the street.
May you like
Beneath the photograph was one sentence.
THE ACCOUNTANT SHOULD HAVE STAYED IN THE TRUCK.
