Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Never Needed a Visitor Badge
Monday began quietly.
That was usually when trouble was most efficient.
At 8:04 a.m., Evelyn placed Lorenzo’s espresso beside the stack of documents on his desk, adjusted a meeting from eleven to eleven-thirty, denied three requests from people who believed urgency was a personality trait, and opened the weekly transaction summary from Falcone Global’s logistics division.
At 8:17, she stopped breathing for two seconds.
Transfer authorization EC-4471.
Her initials.
Her access number.
Eight million dollars.
The recipient was North Harbor Infrastructure Services.
Evelyn had never heard of it.
She clicked backward through the accounting system.
Three previous transfers.
Two million.
Three-point-five million.
Six million.
All approved under credentials connected to her office.
All processed on dates when she had been sitting less than thirty feet from Lorenzo.
Her first instinct was to print everything.
She stopped herself.
If someone could use her authorization code, someone might be monitoring print activity.
Instead, she took out the old-fashioned notebook she used for grocery lists and began copying transaction numbers by hand.
At 8:29 Diana Voss appeared.
No footsteps.
No knock.
Just suddenly there.
“Working early?”
“I work every morning.”
Diana looked at the monitor.
Evelyn had already minimized the window.
“Mr. Reyes wants the Harbor Point minutes.”
“Then Mr. Reyes should have approved the Harbor Point minutes when I sent them Thursday.”
Diana smiled faintly.
“He says he never received them.”
“I have his confirmation.”
“How fortunate.”
Evelyn met her gaze.
“Usually.”
Diana leaned one hip against the desk.
“Did you enjoy Friday?”
“The chicken was dry.”
“I meant the company.”
“I generally don’t review my employer’s acquaintances.”
“You danced with him.”
“That tends to happen at events involving dancing.”
Something sharpened behind Diana’s eyes.
“You and Lorenzo seem comfortable together.”
Evelyn almost corrected the use of his first name.
Instead she said, “Three years of calendar management creates intimacy.”
Diana’s gaze shifted toward Evelyn’s family photograph.
Again.
Rita.
Their mother.
That second too long.
Evelyn felt a quiet unease spread through her.
“Is there something interesting about my sister?”
Diana looked back.
“No.”
“You keep looking at her.”
“I was wondering which one of you is older.”
“She is.”
“Married?”
Evelyn smiled without warmth.
“You seem remarkably curious for an executive liaison.”
Diana straightened.
“And you seem remarkably protective for a secretary.”
Then she walked away.
At 8:36 Evelyn called Lorenzo.
He answered after one ring.
“Come in.”
She had not said anything.
That told her he had been watching the office camera.
She entered and closed the door.
“There’s a transfer.”
Lorenzo’s expression stayed neutral.
“How much?”
“Eight million.”
“Recipient?”
“North Harbor Infrastructure Services.”
His jaw tightened.
Not much.
Enough.
“You know it.”
“Yes.”
“My authorization code approved it.”
He rose.
“Show me.”
She did.
Lorenzo studied the screen.
His attention did not rest on the money.
It rested on the timestamp.
“Sunday. 2:13 a.m.”
“I was asleep.”
“I’m aware.”
“I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
He ignored the sarcasm.
“Has anyone else seen this?”
“Possibly whoever stole my credentials.”
“Anyone you told?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He reached for his phone.
Evelyn put a hand over it.
It was the first time she had intentionally stopped him from doing anything.
Lorenzo stared at her fingers.
Then at her.
“If you call security,” she said, “whoever did it knows we found the transfer.”
“Evelyn—”
“And if someone inside security helped them, we lose whatever advantage we have.”
The room became silent.
Lorenzo slowly lowered the phone.
“You’ve been thinking about this.”
“For about six minutes.”
“I find that unsettling.”
“Imagine how I feel.”
He came around the desk.
“What else?”
“Diana keeps looking at my sister’s photograph.”
His expression changed instantly.
That frightened Evelyn more than the transfer.
“Why?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Has she asked about Rita before?”
“Today. Whether she was older. Whether she was married.”
“Did you answer?”
“Only the first question.”
Lorenzo crossed to the door and locked it.
“Tell me everything Diana has said to you since she arrived.”
Evelyn did.
He listened without interruption.
When she finished, he walked toward the harbor windows.
“Margaret didn’t take personal leave,” he said.
Evelyn waited.
“She disappeared.”
The words seemed to tilt the office.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“She left work twelve days ago. Her phone was found in Cambridge two days later.”
“And nobody told me?”
“I didn’t want anyone outside a small circle to know.”
“You brought Diana in after Margaret disappeared.”
“No.”
He faced her.
“The board brought Diana in.”
Evelyn understood.
“You don’t trust her.”
“No.”
“Does she know that?”
“If she does, she hides it well.”
“And the man in the gray suit?”
“His name is Adrian Cole.”
“Who does he work for?”
“That’s what concerns me.”
Lorenzo opened a drawer, removed a thin folder and slid it across the desk.
Inside were surveillance stills.
Adrian outside Falcone headquarters.
Adrian entering a restaurant with Victor Caruso.
Adrian following a company vehicle.
Then one photograph stopped her.
Adrian standing across the street from Evelyn’s Beacon Hill apartment.
Three days before the benefit.
“You knew,” she whispered.
“I learned Friday afternoon.”
“And still brought me to that ballroom?”
“I thought it was safer to keep you beside me.”
“You might have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because if you knew someone was watching you, you would behave differently.”
“You don’t know that.”
Lorenzo’s eyes held hers.
“You noticed him in a ballroom containing four hundred people.”
Fair point.
Evelyn closed the folder.
“Am I in danger?”
“Yes.”
No softening.
No lie.
She respected him for that and disliked him for everything else.
“Because of what I know?”
“Because someone believes you know something.”
“What?”
“That eight-million-dollar transfer may be part of it.”
Lorenzo lowered his voice.
“There are twelve shell companies tied to contracts my father created years ago. Most have been dormant for more than a decade. North Harbor was one of them.”
“Was?”
“Three months ago, someone reactivated it.”
“Without your permission?”
“Yes.”
“And used my credentials.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn sat down.
“Wonderful.”
“I’m assigning protection.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“Then I’m declining an instruction.”
“Evelyn.”
“I live in a building where Mrs. Donnelly calls the police if the mailman parks crooked. If six men in black SUVs sit outside my apartment, the entire neighborhood will know by lunchtime.”
“Two people.”
“No.”
“One.”
“No.”
“Your negotiating strategy is irritating.”
“Your strategy is pretending I don’t get a vote.”
For several moments Lorenzo looked as though he wanted to argue.
Instead he said, “Then I drive you home tonight.”
“That seems worse.”
“It isn’t negotiable.”
“You just criticized my negotiating strategy.”
“Because mine is better.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
At 6:11 that evening they descended to the underground garage.
Evelyn reached the passenger side of Lorenzo’s black sedan.
Then stopped.
There was something beneath the windshield wiper.
A cream-colored envelope.
Lorenzo saw it too.
He moved in front of her instinctively.
“Stay behind me.”
“There’s no one here.”
“That you can see.”
He removed the envelope with a handkerchief from his pocket.
Inside was a photograph.
Evelyn leaving her apartment.
On the back were six words.
ASK YOUR BOSS ABOUT YOUR SISTER.
The garage suddenly felt too large and too empty.
Evelyn stared at the message.
Then she looked at Lorenzo.
For the first time since she had known him, Lorenzo Falcone looked afraid.
Not for himself.
For her.
“What do they know about Rita?” Evelyn asked.
Lorenzo did not answer.
And that silence told her something worse than any threat could have.
May you like
He already knew why they had chosen her sister.
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