Chương 3 - The Secret Behind Penelope WoodsLarkin read the message twice.
Then he called someone.
“Car. Now.”
Thomas frowned.
“What happened?”
Larkin ignored him.
He placed a hand lightly at my back and moved me toward the exit.
The ballroom noticed us leaving.
I didn’t care.
The black dress that had felt like armor twenty minutes earlier suddenly felt ridiculous.
My apartment.
My notebooks.
My backup drive.
Three years of information.
I had never intended to use any of it unless I needed to survive.
But criminals don’t care about intentions.
They care about possession.
We entered the elevator.
Thomas followed.
Larkin stopped him.
“You stay.”
Thomas blinked.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
The doors closed.
For forty-two floors, Larkin said nothing.
Neither did I.
When we reached the underground garage, a black sedan waited.
Two security vehicles followed.
I sat beside Larkin.
He looked at my phone again.
“Who knows where you live?”
“Human resources.”
“Friends?”
“I don’t discuss work with friends.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No.”
“Family?”
“My mother knows the address.”
“Anyone inside the organization?”
“Anyone with employee records.”
His eyes narrowed.
“That’s more people than I like.”
The car accelerated into Manhattan traffic.
After several minutes, Larkin said, “What did you keep?”
I looked out the window.
“Notes.”
“How many?”
“Three years.”
His face went very still.
“What kind of notes?”
“Transactions.”
“Why?”
I turned toward him.
“Because I’m not stupid.”
His eyes hardened.
“You copied confidential information.”
“I recorded information necessary to protect myself.”
“From who?”
I almost laughed.
“Seriously?”
He didn’t.
I continued.
“I work for an organization where people occasionally disappear from payroll without submitting resignation letters. I needed insurance.”
“Against me?”
“Against everyone.”
Something about the answer bothered him.
Maybe because he wanted me to trust him.
But trust is a luxury.
Survival is not.
When we reached Queens, two security vehicles moved ahead.
My apartment building looked normal.
Too normal.
One of Larkin’s men entered first.
We waited.
Five minutes later, he returned.
“Door’s damaged.”
My stomach dropped.
We went upstairs.
My apartment looked like a storm had passed through it.
Cabinet doors open.
Cushions slashed.
Drawers emptied.
Books scattered.
My mattress torn.
The box beneath my closet was gone.
So were the notebooks.
I stood in the middle of the wreckage.
Larkin watched me.
“What exactly was in them?”
“Everything I thought mattered.”
“Names?”
“Yes.”
“Accounts?”
“Yes.”
“Transactions?”
“Yes.”
“His transactions?”
I looked at him.
He didn’t have to say Thomas’s name.
“Yes.”
Larkin turned toward his men.
“Find whoever did this.”
They spread through the apartment.
I crouched beside the remains of my desk.
The external drive was missing too.
Then I noticed something.
A photograph lying beneath a broken lamp.
Me at seventeen.
My father standing beside me.
Larkin noticed the change in my face.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“What does he do?”
“Did.”
Larkin waited.
“He was an accountant.”
That got his attention.
“For who?”
I stood.
“A company called Meridian Allied Holdings.”
Larkin’s expression changed immediately.
I saw recognition.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Why?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead he asked, “When did your father die?”
“Twelve years ago.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
Larkin looked away.
Something about his silence made my skin crawl.
“What?”
“Penelope.”
“What?”
“I don’t think your father’s death was an accident.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I stared at him.
“That isn’t funny.”
“I’m not joking.”
“How would you know anything about my father?”
“Meridian Allied Holdings wasn’t a normal company.”
“I know.”
He looked back at me.
“It was one of my father’s laundering structures.”
Everything inside me went silent.
My father.
The man who taught me spreadsheets.
The man who taught me to check every number twice.
The man who died when I was sixteen.
He had worked for the Steves family.
I whispered, “No.”
“Yes.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“I’m not.”
I stepped closer.
“Why have you never said anything?”
“I didn’t know you were his daughter.”
“My last name is Woods.”
“So was his.”
“Exactly.”
“There were thousands of employees across those structures.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I asked the question that mattered.
“What happened to him?”
Larkin hesitated.
That hesitation scared me more than anything.
“He discovered money was being moved without authorization.”
“By who?”
“We never proved it.”
“We?”
“My father investigated after your father died.”
“And?”
“The records disappeared.”
My mouth went dry.
“Just like mine.”
“Yes.”
The connection landed between us.
Somebody had stolen financial records twelve years ago.
Now somebody had stolen mine.
The same organization.
The same kind of information.
Possibly the same secret.
Larkin’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“One of our cameras caught someone leaving your building.”
“Who?”
He turned the phone toward me.
The image was grainy.
A man wearing a coat and baseball cap.
But the face was visible.
I knew him.
Not personally.
From office security.
Thomas’s driver.
I looked at Larkin.
His expression had become unreadable.
“That doesn’t prove Thomas sent him,” he said.
“No.”
“But?”
I looked around my destroyed apartment.
“But it proves he knows more than he should.”
Then my phone vibrated again.
Another unknown message.
THIS STARTED WITH YOUR FATHER.
AND IT ENDS WITH YOU.
Attached was a scanned photograph of an old ledger page.
At the bottom was my father’s signature.
And beside it was another name.
A name I recognized immediately.
Steves.
But not Larkin.
Not Thomas.
Their father’s generation.
Larkin leaned over my shoulder.
He read it.
May you like
Then whispered something I had never expected to hear from him.
“My father lied to me.”
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