Chapter 6 - The Secretary Everyone Forgot Was Listening
Samuel Reyes had chaired Falcone Global’s board for eleven years.
He was sixty-three, elegant, philanthropic, soft-spoken and so consistently reasonable that people often mistook calmness for integrity.
Evelyn had never trusted people who were always reasonable.
Real people got annoyed.
Samuel Reyes never seemed to.
The next morning he called her desk.
“Evelyn, could you come in?”
His office occupied the opposite end of the executive floor.
When she entered, Diana was already there.
Samuel rose warmly.
“Please sit.”
“I’m comfortable standing.”
“As you like.”
He folded his hands.
“I understand Lorenzo has been involving you in unusual company matters.”
Evelyn kept her face neutral.
“I schedule most company matters.”
Samuel smiled.
“You know what I mean.”
“No, actually.”
Diana moved toward the windows.
Samuel continued.
“There are concerns about recent financial irregularities.”
“I’m aware.”
“Your authorization credentials appear in several transfers.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“This could become serious.”
“I assume eight million dollars generally qualifies.”
Diana looked back sharply.
Samuel’s expression did not change.
Interesting.
The amount had not been publicly discussed.
“Eight million?” he asked.
Evelyn tilted her head.
“Did you not know?”
A pause.
“No.”
A lie.
Evelyn had seen his access log.
Samuel had opened the transfer report twice.
She stored the lie.
He leaned forward.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“That’s kind.”
“If there is anything you did under instruction—”
“From Lorenzo?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Diana spoke.
“Mr. Reyes is offering you protection.”
Evelyn looked at her.
“From whom?”
“Anyone who may try to shift responsibility onto you.”
“Again, Lorenzo?”
Samuel raised a calming hand.
“Nobody is accusing anyone.”
“I’m relieved. For a moment I thought this meeting had a point.”
Diana’s almost-smile disappeared.
Samuel studied Evelyn carefully.
“You’re more formidable than people realize.”
“There are excellent advantages to being underestimated.”
She rose.
“If that’s all, Mr. Falcone has a call in nine minutes.”
Samuel watched her reach the door.
“Evelyn.”
She turned.
“If things become difficult, you may find loyalty is an expensive luxury.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Only when you give it to the wrong people.”
She returned to her desk.
Lorenzo emerged twenty seconds later.
“What did he want?”
“To save me from you.”
“How generous.”
“He knows we found the transfer.”
“How?”
“I told him the amount.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“You what?”
“I wanted to see whether he’d pretend not to know.”
“And?”
“He did.”
Lorenzo’s frustration disappeared.
“He accessed the report.”
“Twice.”
“So he lied.”
“Yes.”
For a moment, Lorenzo looked almost proud.
Evelyn pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Whatever expression that is.”
“I’m not making an expression.”
“You are.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Think less visibly.”
He returned to his office.
At lunchtime Diana left the building.
Evelyn waited four minutes and followed.
Not directly.
She went downstairs, purchased soup, exited through the side lobby and walked east.
Diana entered a hotel three blocks away.
Evelyn did not follow inside.
Instead she crossed to a café with windows facing the entrance.
Twenty-two minutes later Victor Caruso emerged.
Then Diana.
Separate.
Ten seconds apart.
Evelyn photographed them with her phone.
As she lowered it, someone sat across from her.
Adrian Cole.
She nearly spilled her soup.
“You need to stop doing that.”
“Following you?”
“Appearing like a badly written spy.”
For the first time, Adrian smiled.
“You’re difficult to intimidate.”
“Apparently everyone finds that disappointing.”
He glanced toward the hotel.
“You saw them.”
“Yes.”
“Diana’s been meeting Caruso for months.”
“Why?”
“She wants something he has.”
“Bellweather?”
Adrian’s smile vanished.
“Who told you that name?”
“Margaret.”
“When?”
“Not your concern.”
“It is if she’s alive.”
“She was as of last night.”
Adrian looked genuinely relieved.
Evelyn noticed.
“You care about her.”
“She saved my life.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“How?”
“That’s another story.”
“Everyone around Lorenzo has another story.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Listen carefully. Samuel Reyes isn’t controlling Diana.”
Evelyn stilled.
“Then who is?”
“Diana.”
“No.”
“Reyes thinks she works for him. Caruso thinks she works for him. Lorenzo thinks the board placed her.”
“And you?”
“I think she placed herself.”
Evelyn considered it.
“What does she want?”
“The Bellweather file.”
“Everyone wants it.”
“Yes, but Diana has a different reason.”
“What?”
“She believes her father’s name is inside.”
Evelyn waited.
Adrian said, “Her father was Daniel Voss.”
Nothing.
Then memory.
A name in an old corporate archive.
Head of North Harbor operations.
Died sixteen years earlier.
Officially a boating accident.
“Her father worked for Lorenzo’s father.”
“He did more than work for him.”
“What?”
“He created the transfer system North Harbor used.”
Evelyn understood.
“If the ledger proves someone stole through North Harbor…”
“It could also prove Daniel Voss built the mechanism.”
“And Diana wants the file destroyed.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
Adrian looked out the window.
“Unless she believes the file proves he was innocent.”
Evelyn watched Diana disappear down the block.
“So everybody wants the same document for a different reason.”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone actually know where it is?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Margaret.”
Before Evelyn could respond, her phone rang.
Lorenzo.
“Where are you?”
“Lunch.”
“Where?”
“Near Tremont.”
“With whom?”
Evelyn looked at Adrian.
“He knows, doesn’t he?”
Lorenzo’s voice hardened.
“Evelyn.”
“Adrian Cole.”
A silence.
Then:
“Put him on.”
Adrian took the phone.
“Falcone.”
He listened.
“No.”
Listened again.
“Because your building security is compromised.”
His face changed.
“When?”
He stood.
“Evelyn, we need to go.”
“What happened?”
Adrian handed the phone back.
Lorenzo said, “Someone accessed Archive Room C.”
Her chest tightened.
“Bellweather.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“When?”
“Six minutes ago.”
Evelyn was already moving.
By the time they reached Falcone Global, security had locked the archive level.
The door to Room C showed no forced entry.
Inside, one cabinet stood open.
Lorenzo walked directly to the lowest drawer.
Empty.
Whatever had been stored there was gone.
Then Evelyn saw something on the floor.
A small gold earring.
She picked it up carefully.
She had seen its matching pair that morning.
On Diana Voss.
Lorenzo stared at it.
“So Diana has Bellweather.”
“No,” Evelyn said.
“Why not?”
“Because she’s too careful to drop an earring.”
He looked at her.
Evelyn held up the gold piece.
“Someone wants us to think she has it.”
Adrian checked the doorway.
“There are no cameras inside.”
“Then whoever planted this knew that.”
Evelyn looked at the empty cabinet.
A thought occurred to her.
“Lorenzo, who knew which drawer Bellweather was supposed to be in?”
He answered slowly.
“Margaret. Me. My father.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
“Then whoever opened the drawer either had Margaret…”
“Or information from my father.”
Evelyn turned toward the door.
Diana stood there.
Wearing both earrings.
She looked at the gold piece in Evelyn’s hand.
Then she removed one of her own.
Identical.
“Interesting,” Diana said.
Nobody moved.
She stepped into the room.
“If you’re going to accuse me of something, Ms. Carter, at least make sure the evidence isn’t sold in sets of six.”
Evelyn looked more closely.
Diana was right.
The earrings were similar, not identical.
Diana folded her arms.
“And now,” she said, “perhaps we can stop pretending Lorenzo is the only person with enemies.”
She looked directly at Lorenzo.
“Your father didn’t create Bellweather to investigate my father.”
Lorenzo’s voice was cold.
“Then why?”
“To investigate Samuel Reyes.”
Silence.
Diana reached into her handbag.
Adrian tensed.
She withdrew a photograph.
Three men stood beside a dock fifteen years earlier.
Lorenzo’s father.
Daniel Voss.
Samuel Reyes.
On the back, written in Lorenzo’s mother’s handwriting, were four words:
SAMUEL KNOWS ABOUT THE BOY.
Evelyn looked at Lorenzo.
“What boy?”
Diana answered before he could.
“You.”
And suddenly the conflict was no longer about missing money.
May you like
It was about the secret Lorenzo’s parents had hidden even from him.
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