Chapter 3 - Follow My Lead
“Tell me.”
Evelyn stood beside Lorenzo’s sedan with the photograph trembling very slightly between her fingers.
“Not here.”
“You’ve used that sentence too many times this week.”
“Evelyn.”
“No.”
Her voice remained quiet.
That made the refusal more serious.
“You knew someone had been following me. You knew Margaret disappeared. You knew North Harbor existed. And now somebody mentions my sister and you suddenly look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Lorenzo scanned the concrete levels around them.
“Get in the car.”
“Tell me first.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“When you are somewhere I can control.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
His jaw tightened.
“Somewhere I can protect.”
That was different.
Barely.
Evelyn entered the car.
Lorenzo did not take her home.
Twenty minutes later they entered an underground garage beneath a waterfront building she had never seen listed among Falcone Global properties.
A private elevator opened directly into a penthouse overlooking Boston Harbor.
Evelyn stepped inside.
The apartment was severe but not cold. Dark wood. Books. Gray furniture. No framed photographs except one on a bookshelf showing a younger Lorenzo beside an older man whose expression was just as unreadable.
“Your home?” she asked.
“One of them.”
“Of course.”
He removed his jacket and loosened his tie for the first time Evelyn had ever seen.
The gesture should have made him seem less intimidating.
It did not.
“Coffee?”
“Information.”
He nodded once.
“Your sister worked for Calder & Wynn fifteen years ago.”
Evelyn froze.
“She was a junior accountant for nine months.”
“I know where Rita worked.”
“Do you know what she found?”
“No.”
Lorenzo poured water into a glass but did not drink it.
“Calder & Wynn audited several companies connected to my father.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“My sister audited your family?”
“Indirectly.”
“And?”
“She flagged irregularities involving three holding companies. One was North Harbor.”
Evelyn’s stomach dropped.
“Rita never told me.”
“She probably never knew the full significance.”
“Why do you?”
“Because my father received a report with her name attached.”
The room went completely silent.
“What happened to the report?”
“It disappeared.”
“When?”
“The week after it was submitted.”
Evelyn thought of Rita fifteen years earlier—twenty-eight, ambitious, exhausted, suddenly quitting the firm and moving to Providence without explanation.
At the time she had told Evelyn the work was making her miserable.
“What happened to my sister?”
“Nothing.”
“You said that too quickly.”
“She left the firm. Someone arranged a settlement. She signed a confidentiality agreement.”
“Someone?”
“My father.”
Evelyn stepped back.
Lorenzo’s face remained composed, but his eyes did not.
“You knew this when you hired me?”
“No.”
“When did you learn?”
“Six months after you started.”
“And for two and a half years you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you weren’t involved.”
“I’m involved now.”
“Yes.”
“Because someone used my authorization code to move money through the same company my sister investigated fifteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You have an astonishing talent for making terrible facts sound orderly.”
“I’ve had practice.”
She walked toward the window.
The harbor below was black glass broken by distant lights.
“Does Rita know you hired me?”
“She knows who I am.”
That made Evelyn turn.
“What?”
Lorenzo looked at her steadily.
“I met her.”
The words struck like a slap.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Evelyn stared.
“You met my sister behind my back?”
“She contacted me.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to know whether North Harbor was active again.”
“And was it?”
“Not then.”
“What else did she say?”
“She asked me to keep you away from anything connected to it.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Rita had always been protective.
Too protective.
She had once driven four hours through a snowstorm because Evelyn mentioned on the phone that she had a fever.
But this—
This was different.
“What did my sister find?”
“I don’t know all of it.”
“Then tell me what you do know.”
Lorenzo was silent.
Evelyn turned fully toward him.
“No more protecting me with missing information.”
He looked almost offended.
“I’m not protecting you with missing information.”
“That is exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m protecting you because information gets people killed.”
The sentence landed between them.
Neither moved.
Lorenzo seemed to realize he had said too much.
Evelyn spoke carefully.
“Was someone killed because of North Harbor?”
He looked toward the window.
“That is not a question I can answer safely.”
“So yes.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
For several seconds, they simply looked at one another.
Then Lorenzo crossed the room.
Not threatening.
Not close enough to touch.
But close enough that she could see fatigue around his eyes.
“Friday night,” he said, “when I told you to follow my lead, it wasn’t because Adrian Cole was the only person watching us.”
“Who else?”
“Three board members. Victor Caruso. Diana.”
“Why?”
“They were watching to see whether I knew you mattered.”
Evelyn’s pulse changed.
“And do I?”
Lorenzo answered too slowly.
“That depends what you mean.”
She folded her arms.
“That sounded suspiciously like avoidance.”
“It was.”
Despite everything, she almost smiled.
Then his expression hardened again.
“You need to leave Boston for a few days.”
“No.”
“I knew you’d say that.”
“Then why waste time?”
“Because the next part matters. Whoever reactivated North Harbor didn’t choose your credentials randomly. They wanted a trail pointing toward you.”
“To frame me?”
“Yes.”
“For embezzlement?”
“Possibly.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
“What do you believe?”
He stared at her.
“They want you scared enough to run.”
Evelyn felt cold.
“Why?”
“Because frightened people destroy evidence without realizing it. They quit jobs. Delete files. Throw away notebooks. Stop asking questions.”
She glanced toward her handbag.
Inside was the notebook containing the transaction numbers she had copied that morning.
Lorenzo noticed.
“You wrote something down.”
She hesitated.
Then removed the notebook.
He opened it.
For the first time all evening, genuine surprise crossed his face.
“You copied the transfer IDs?”
“And timestamps.”
“And routing codes.”
“And the employee access sequence.”
His eyes lifted.
“Why?”
“Because printers leave logs.”
A long silence.
Then Lorenzo said something she had never expected.
“Good.”
Not praise.
Recognition.
Evelyn leaned against the table.
“What happens now?”
“We find out who used your credentials.”
“And Rita?”
“I’ll contact her.”
“No.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll contact her.”
“That could expose her.”
“She’s my sister.”
“And she asked me to protect you.”
“And I am asking you to stop deciding what protection means for my family.”
That hit him.
He gave a slight nod.
“All right.”
Evelyn called Rita.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
She sent a message.
Call me. Urgent.
A minute passed.
Then another.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“You should have stayed quiet, Ms. Carter.”
Lorenzo crossed the room immediately.
Evelyn put the call on speaker.
“Who is this?”
“You already saw the photograph.”
Lorenzo’s face became stone.
The caller continued.
“Ask Falcone what happened the last time a Carter woman became curious.”
The line went dead.
Evelyn looked at Lorenzo.
He had gone completely still.
“What happened the last time?”
“Rita disappeared for three days.”
Evelyn stared.
“She told us she was sick.”
“She wasn’t.”
“What happened?”
Lorenzo’s answer was nearly a whisper.
“My father found her before Victor Caruso did.”
The name from the ballroom.
White hair.
Red tie.
Evelyn suddenly remembered where she had seen him before.
Not Friday.
Much earlier.
In one of Rita’s old photographs.
Standing outside Calder & Wynn.
Fifteen years ago.
Her pulse accelerated.
“Victor Caruso knew my sister.”
“Yes.”
“And he’s at your charity event fifteen years later.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lorenzo’s eyes hardened.
“Because whatever your sister found was never really buried.”
Evelyn looked down at the notebook.
Eight million dollars.
North Harbor.
Her stolen credentials.
Margaret missing.
Diana arriving without a visitor badge.
Adrian Cole watching her.
These were not separate problems.
They were pieces of the same machine.
And for the first time, Evelyn understood why Lorenzo had brought her into the ballroom.
He did not need a secretary.
He needed someone the enemy would underestimate.
Someone they would speak around.
Someone they would forget to fear.
Evelyn closed the notebook.
“Tomorrow morning,” she said, “I’m going to work.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“They’re watching you.”
“Exactly.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
Then something changed in his expression.
Not approval.
Not quite.
Recognition.
“What are you planning?”
Evelyn picked up her handbag.
“The same thing I’ve done for three years.”
“And what is that?”
She looked him directly in the eyes.
May you like
“Listen while important men assume I’m not paying attention.”
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