Chapter 5 - The Companies That Never Existed
Clara closed the laptop.
“Turn everything off.”
Marco stared at her.
“What?”
“Phones. Tablets. Anything connected to the hotel network.”
Dominic did not ask why.
“Do it.”
Within seconds the room became technologically silent.
Vincent placed his phone inside a signal-blocking pouch.
Arthur removed his earpiece.
Marco ordered the security staff onto isolated radios.
Clara felt the strange calm that always came over her when a puzzle became dangerous enough to eliminate every distraction.
She took a legal pad.
A pen.
And began writing.
Dominic watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Going backward.”
“From what?”
“Everything.”
She wrote four names at the top:
SALVATORE CASTELLANO
ARTHUR BELLINI
LEONARD PIERCE
VICTOR MARLOWE
“The four founders.”
Arthur frowned.
“I wasn’t a founder.”
“That’s what the photograph says.”
“I was Salvatore’s driver.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You were twenty-six and already looked fifty.”
Arthur ignored him.
Clara drew lines beneath the names.
“Eighteen years ago, Salvatore discovered money disappearing through contractors.”
Arthur nodded.
“Apparently.”
“Now the same structure has returned.”
She wrote:
NORTHSTAR CIVIC ADVISORY
GRAYSON INDUSTRIAL PARTNERS
LAKESHORE SITE MANAGEMENT
MIDWEST INFRASTRUCTURE SOLUTIONS
Dominic recognized the list.
“These are the companies you flagged.”
“Yes.”
“None real?”
“Some are legally registered. That doesn’t mean they operate.”
She pulled a printed summary from her bag.
“Northstar has a mailing address at a UPS store. Grayson lists a warehouse that was demolished four years ago. Lakeshore claims twelve employees but reports zero payroll tax. Midwest Infrastructure received $1.1 million and has no working phone number.”
Vincent whistled softly.
“And nobody noticed?”
Clara looked at him.
“People notice numbers. They don’t always notice relationships.”
She drew another line.
“All four receive payments from Castellano companies.”
Then another.
“All four pay consulting fees to Marlowe-linked entities.”
Dominic leaned over the table.
“And Pierce?”
“His law firm appears as registered agent for three.”
Arthur muttered something in Italian.
Clara continued.
“But that is almost too obvious.”
“You keep defending Pierce,” Dominic said.
“No. I keep refusing to convict people before the numbers do.”
Dominic held her gaze.
“You know that habit could make you unpopular around me.”
“I noticed.”
Vincent smiled.
Dominic did not.
But Clara saw the brief softness in his eyes.
She returned to the timeline.
“The attack tonight accomplished several things. It tested whether they could move Vincent. It removed Arthur temporarily. It sent Pierce away from the ballroom. It pushed us toward Navy Pier. And most importantly, it made us react.”
Arthur understood.
“While somebody does something else.”
“Yes.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
“The countdown.”
“Maybe it’s real. Maybe it exists only to keep you focused on midnight.”
Marco returned with printed aviation logs.
“No helicopter under Pierce, Marlowe, Shaw, Northstar, or any company we know.”
Clara scanned the list.
“What about corporate ownership?”
Marco handed her another sheet.
She read.
One tail number stood out.
N882BW.
Owner: Bellweather Agricultural Holdings.
Clara’s pulse changed.
“Bellweather.”
Dominic looked over.
“You know it?”
“It made a payment to Grayson last year.”
Arthur leaned closer.
“Destination?”
Marco pointed.
“Lake Geneva Municipal Airport.”
Departure: 10:16 p.m.
Clara checked the time.
11:39.
“They’re already there.”
Dominic reached for his jacket.
“We go north.”
Clara shook her head.
“Not yet.”
His expression darkened.
“Clara.”
“If they want you away from Chicago, leaving could be exactly the mistake.”
“The ledger is at Blackwater.”
“We don’t know that.”
“My father died there.”
“And whoever is manipulating us knows that matters to you.”
Dominic stared at her.
For a moment the room was silent.
Then Vincent spoke.
“She’s right.”
Dominic turned on him.
“You are having an unusually brave evening.”
“I nearly got abducted. It has clarified my priorities.”
Arthur pointed at Clara’s list.
“What are we missing?”
She tapped the first amount.
“$3.8 million.”
The exact figure from her first presentation.
“I kept assuming it was stolen money.”
Dominic frowned.
“What else?”
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Clara began adding amounts.
$410,000.
$275,000.
$620,000.
$190,000.
There were dozens.
She wrote dates beside them.
Then stopped.
“Arthur.”
“Yes?”
“When did Salvatore die?”
He gave the date.
Clara searched the payment history.
Nothing.
She went one month before.
One payment.
$180,000.
One week after his death.
$180,000.
Exactly the same amount.
Then every year on the anniversary—
$180,000.
Dominic saw it.
“What is that?”
“A recurring transfer.”
“To whom?”
Clara traced the recipient.
The current company was Northstar.
Earlier years used different shell companies.
But the destination bank code stayed consistent.
She felt a chill.
“Same final institution.”
Marco asked, “Can you identify the account?”
“Not directly.”
Vincent pointed.
“What about that?”
Each transfer carried a memo.
E.C. TRUST
Dominic went still.
Clara looked at him.
“What?”
He stared at the letters.
“My mother.”
“Eleanor Castellano?”
“Yes.”
“But she died eleven years ago.”
Arthur suddenly sat down.
All eyes turned toward him.
Dominic’s voice sharpened.
“What?”
Arthur looked older than he had ten minutes earlier.
“Your mother had a trust.”
Dominic said nothing.
“She created it after your father died.”
“For what?”
Arthur rubbed a hand across his jaw.
“I was told it was for protection.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“You seem to not know a remarkable amount about my family.”
Arthur accepted it.
“Yes.”
Clara looked at the transfers.
“If the trust continued after Eleanor’s death, someone else became beneficiary or trustee.”
She circled E.C.
“What if it doesn’t mean Eleanor Castellano?”
Vincent frowned.
“Who else?”
Clara searched through the company records.
There.
One name appeared repeatedly as a consultant.
Elaine Carter.
No.
Another.
Edward Collins.
Too common.
Then an old payroll file.
An employee from Castellano Freight.
Elias Crane.
Arthur looked at the name and froze.
Dominic saw.
“You know him.”
Arthur did not answer.
“Arthur.”
“He worked for your father.”
“As what?”
“Bookkeeper.”
Clara’s pulse accelerated.
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared the week Salvatore died.”
Vincent stared.
“Disappeared?”
“Police thought he stole money and ran.”
Clara looked back at the recurring payments.
“What if he didn’t?”
Arthur’s eyes darkened.
“What are you thinking?”
“If Elias Crane knew where the money went, someone may have been paying him.”
“For seventeen years?” Vincent asked.
“Or paying someone connected to him.”
Dominic spoke quietly.
“Find him.”
Marco hesitated.
“Without connected systems?”
Clara answered.
“Old records.”
Arthur stood.
“I know where.”
They descended into the Aster’s archival basement.
The hotel had once housed Castellano corporate offices before Dominic moved headquarters downtown.
Rows of boxes lined the storage room.
Arthur found one labeled:
CASTELLANO FREIGHT — 2008–2010.
Clara searched employee folders.
Elias Crane.
Forty-seven at disappearance.
Widower.
One daughter.
Age twelve.
Name:
EVELYN CRANE.
Clara stared.
Vincent whispered, “Evelyn Shaw.”
They checked the photograph from the elevator.
Age matched.
Dominic’s voice became very quiet.
“Marlowe’s CFO is Crane’s daughter.”
Clara nodded slowly.
“And E.C. Trust may not be your mother.”
It might be Elias Crane.
Or Evelyn Crane.
The payments were not missing money.
They were payments to the family of the man blamed for stealing it.
Why?
Blackmail?
Compensation?
Silence?
Dominic’s phone—powered down but not removed—suddenly vibrated.
Everyone stared.
“That’s impossible,” Marco said.
Dominic took it out.
The screen glowed despite having been shut off.
One message.
ASK ARTHUR WHO BURIED ELIAS CRANE.
Silence filled the basement.
Dominic slowly lifted his eyes.
Arthur had gone pale.
Vincent looked between them.
“Arthur?”
Clara felt the room change.
Whatever Arthur had hidden for seventeen years had just found him.
Dominic stepped closer to the man who had protected him since childhood.
“Who buried Elias Crane?”
Arthur closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, grief lived there.
“Your father did.”
And just like that, the dead man at the center of the mystery was no longer Dominic’s victim.
May you like
He might have been Dominic’s father’s secret.
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