Chapter 12 - Someone Inside Nico’s House Was Lying
Nico refused to believe Rosa betrayed him.
Clara could tell because he became colder, not angrier.
“What evidence?”
Daniel read the report.
“Transfers from a Dane shell company into an account bearing Rosa’s name.”
“Bearing her name,” Nico repeated.
“Yes.”
“Not necessarily hers.”
“Correct.”
“Security logs?”
“Her access code was used.”
“Can be copied.”
“Correct.”
Clara watched them.
“You both think she’s being framed.”
“Yes,” Nico said.
“Then where is she?”
Nobody knew.
They returned to the city.
Rosa’s bedroom had been searched.
Not ransacked.
Searched carefully.
One photograph was missing from her dresser.
Nico noticed immediately.
“What was it?”
“My parents.”
Clara turned.
“You never mention them.”
“They died when I was nineteen.”
“Rosa knew them?”
“She worked for my mother.”
Daniel entered.
“We found a note.”
It was taped beneath Rosa’s desk.
Nico,
If I disappear, do not believe the accounts.
Ask what happened at Pier Six in 2008.
R.
Nico’s face hardened.
Daniel swore.
Clara looked between them.
“What happened at Pier Six?”
Nico sat down.
“My father was killed.”
Clara froze.
“You said your parents died.”
“They did.”
“You didn’t say murdered.”
“I don’t discuss it.”
“Apparently you should start.”
Daniel looked at him.
“She’s right.”
Nico glared.
Daniel shrugged.
“I enjoy surviving, but she’s still right.”
Pier Six had been an abandoned cargo terminal.
Nico’s father had gone there to meet a competitor.
A fire started.
Both of Nico’s parents died.
The case was never solved.
Rosa had always believed it was deliberate.
“What does Victor have to do with it?” Clara asked.
“At the time? Nothing we knew.”
Daniel searched old corporate files.
Then found a connection.
One of the companies that acquired Pier Six after the fire was financed by a young Victor Dane.
Clara stared.
“He was there from the beginning.”
Nico’s face became stone.
Daniel uncovered another detail.
Rosa’s supposedly secret account had been opened using identity documents stolen during the settlement of Nico’s mother’s estate.
The banker who opened it?
Now a Dane executive.
“She was framed,” Clara said.
“Yes.”
The question remained.
Where was she?
Clara searched Rosa’s room again.
Inside the sewing basket, she found a ticket stub.
Bus terminal.
Date: today.
Destination: Port Mercer.
Nico frowned.
“What’s in Port Mercer?”
Clara remembered a line from her father’s ledger.
A shell company registered there.
“Victor’s old accounting office.”
They left immediately.
The building was nearly empty.
On the third floor, they found Rosa.
Alive.
Sitting beside twenty boxes of financial records.
She looked irritated.
“Took you long enough.”
Nico stared.
“You disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“You left a cryptic note.”
“Yes.”
“You let us think you were in danger.”
“I was in danger.”
Clara almost laughed.
Nico did not.
“What are these?”
Rosa tapped a box.
“Your father’s records.”
Nico froze.
“My father?”
“He suspected Victor before anyone knew Victor mattered.”
Rosa looked at Clara.
“Charles and Nico’s father were investigating the same network from opposite ends.”
Clara stared.
“Our fathers knew each other?”
“No.”
Rosa smiled sadly.
“They simply had the same enemy.”
Inside the boxes was proof that Victor’s corruption stretched back nearly twenty years.
More importantly, there were payments made shortly before the Pier Six fire.
One recipient.
A private contractor.
Same contractor used years later to pressure Charles Whitlock.
Nico sat in silence.
Clara touched his shoulder.
For the first time, their stories were no longer merely connected by property.
Victor had shaped both their lives.
Rosa looked at Nico.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“You should have.”
“I know.”
Clara almost smiled.
Apparently everyone in their circle needed lessons in communication.
Then Daniel found something else.
A payment scheduled for the following morning.
Recipient: M. Whitlock.
Clara’s blood turned cold.
“Margaret?”
“No,” Daniel said slowly.
“Martin.”
Clara stared.
“My uncle?”
The amount was five million dollars.
And the transaction had been authorized two days before Martin invited Clara to Maine.
Nico looked at her.
Clara shook her head.
“No.”
But she had learned something painful during the last two weeks.
People she loved could lie.
People she hated could tell the truth.
Evidence had to come before hope.
She called Martin.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then a text appeared.
From Martin.
Clara, I’m sorry.
A second message followed.
You need to leave Nico immediately.
And a third.
May you like
If you stay with him, neither of you survives tomorrow.
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