Chapter 3 - Four Million Dollars Missing
By the third day, Gabriel had stopped calling the missing money theft.
He called it architecture.
The more his accountants uncovered, the clearer it became that someone had built an entire financial structure beneath his companies.
Invoices led to contractors.
Contractors led to insurers.
Insurers led to holding companies.
Holding companies led back to vendors Marino businesses had trusted for years.
The system had not been created recently.
It had been growing quietly for at least eighteen months.
Perhaps longer.
That meant Sophia had still been alive when it began.
Gabriel sat at his office desk with two screens filled with transaction maps.
Victor stood opposite him.
“We traced another seven hundred thousand.”
“To where?”
“Three accounts. Delaware, Nevada, and Ontario.”
“Owners?”
“Nominees.”
“Real owners.”
“We’re working on it.”
Gabriel’s eyes remained on the screen.
“No. You’re telling me you’re working on it.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“You think I’m moving too slowly?”
“I think whoever designed this knew exactly how we investigate money.”
“You’re accusing someone inside.”
“I’m stating a fact.”
Victor pulled out a chair.
“You have fifty-seven senior employees across the companies.”
“Forty-nine.”
Victor frowned.
“What?”
“Eight no longer have access as of this morning.”
“You removed them?”
“I removed everyone whose credentials touched the suspicious accounts.”
“Without telling me?”
Gabriel looked up.
“Did I need permission?”
Victor sat back.
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
The old tension between them surfaced.
Twelve years.
That was how long Victor Dayne had stood beside Gabriel.
They had built restaurants together.
Expanded freight operations together.
Buried Gabriel’s father together.
Victor had been at Gabriel and Sophia’s wedding.
He had sat outside the hospital when Leo was born.
He had identified Daniel Kesler after the security leak.
And he had been one of the first people at the estate on the night Sophia died.
Gabriel remembered Victor standing in the rain.
Suit soaked.
Hands shaking.
Telling him there had been a failure in the east security system.
Telling him Daniel had access.
Telling him Daniel had disappeared.
At the time, it had felt like evidence.
Now Gabriel wondered if grief had made him accept the first explanation offered.
“Tell me again what happened with Daniel,” Gabriel said.
Victor went still.
“We’ve been through that.”
“Do it again.”
“Gabriel—”
“Humor me.”
Victor leaned back.
“Daniel Kesler had worked on the estate’s electrical systems for five years. When you upgraded security, he helped map the camera network.”
“So he knew blind spots.”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“All the temporary ones during installation. A few permanent angles caused by architecture.”
“And the east corridor.”
“Yes.”
“Who else knew?”
“You. Me. Daniel.”
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
Gabriel watched him.
“Daniel sold the layout.”
“That’s what the evidence showed.”
“What evidence?”
“Copies of security diagrams on his laptop.”
“Who found them?”
Victor did not answer.
Gabriel already knew.
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“Where was the laptop?”
“His workshop.”
“Who entered first?”
“I did.”
“Anyone with you?”
“Two men.”
“Names.”
Victor’s jaw flexed.
“One is dead. The other left Chicago.”
“Convenient.”
Victor rose.
“You’re doing this because of a forged signature?”
“I’m doing this because I should have done it fourteen months ago.”
“You were burying your wife fourteen months ago.”
“And you handled everything.”
“Because you couldn’t.”
The sentence cut through the room.
Victor seemed to regret it immediately.
Gabriel did not move.
Victor lowered his voice.
“You were destroyed. Leo wasn’t speaking. There was pressure from every direction. I did what you asked.”
Gabriel remembered.
He had said one thing after Sophia’s funeral.
Find who did this.
Victor had brought him Daniel.
And Gabriel had never personally checked the work.
“What exactly did Daniel say when you confronted him?”
“That he didn’t do it.”
“Anything else?”
“He said someone was manipulating the cameras.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Why?”
Victor exhaled.
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel thought of the music box.
Then Evelyn’s reaction when he asked whether she knew Sophia.
“Did Daniel ever mention Evelyn Reed?”
Victor frowned.
“The nanny?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“You’re certain?”
“As far as I remember.”
A knock interrupted them.
Gabriel’s assistant entered.
“Mr. Marino, there’s someone downstairs asking to see you.”
“Who?”
“He won’t give his name. He says it’s about Daniel Kesler.”
Victor turned toward the door.
Gabriel noticed.
Again, a tiny reaction.
Too fast for most people.
Not for him.
“Bring him up.”
Victor stood.
“I’ll stay.”
“No.”
“Gabriel.”
“I said no.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
Then he walked out.
Five minutes later, security escorted an elderly man into Gabriel’s office.
Late sixties.
Work jacket.
Gray beard.
Hands scarred from decades of manual labor.
He carried an envelope.
“My name’s Thomas Reed.”
Reed.
Gabriel’s attention sharpened.
“Any relation to Evelyn Reed?”
The man looked surprised.
“You know Evelyn?”
“She works for me.”
Thomas’s face changed.
Not relief.
Fear.
“Oh, God.”
Gabriel stood.
“What?”
Thomas glanced toward the security men.
“Can we talk alone?”
Gabriel dismissed them.
The door closed.
Thomas remained standing.
“Daniel Kesler was my best friend for thirty years.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“He came to me two weeks before he died.”
“What did he say?”
“That he’d found something inside this house.”
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“What?”
“He wouldn’t tell me everything. Said knowing too much was dangerous.”
Thomas placed the envelope on the desk.
“He asked me to keep this.”
Gabriel did not touch it.
“Why wait fourteen months?”
“Because he made me promise.”
“What changed?”
Thomas looked toward the closed door.
“Evelyn came to see me three nights ago.”
Gabriel’s body became still.
“What did she want?”
“She asked if Daniel ever left anything.”
“And?”
“I lied to her.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know whether she was in danger or bringing danger with her.”
Gabriel finally opened the envelope.
Inside was a small photograph.
Sophia.
Daniel.
And Evelyn.
They stood beside a workbench in what appeared to be Daniel’s electrical shop.
Sophia was laughing.
Evelyn looked several years younger.
Daniel had one hand raised toward the camera.
Written on the back were four words:
If anything happens, listen.
Gabriel looked at Thomas.
“Listen to what?”
“That’s all he left.”
“Why is Evelyn in this photograph?”
Thomas stared at him.
“You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
“Daniel was her brother.”
The room seemed to contract.
Gabriel looked at the photograph again.
Evelyn Reed.
Daniel Kesler.
Different surnames.
Same mother, Thomas explained.
Different fathers.
They had not grown up together, but Daniel had helped Evelyn after their mother died.
Gabriel’s thoughts moved rapidly.
Evelyn had applied to work inside his home seven months after Daniel’s death.
She had never disclosed the relationship.
She had access to Leo.
Sophia’s belongings.
The estate.
And perhaps the security system.
“Did Evelyn believe Daniel was innocent?”
Thomas gave a humorless laugh.
“Believe?”
He stepped closer.
“She knew.”
“How?”
“Because Sophia knew.”
Gabriel felt the air leave his lungs.
“What did you say?”
Thomas looked directly at him.
“Your wife was helping Daniel figure out who had compromised the estate.”
Gabriel stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“Sophia would have told me.”
“Maybe she was trying.”
Gabriel remembered the final weeks before Sophia’s death.
She had seemed distracted.
She asked unusual questions about company insurance.
She had once entered his study holding papers, then changed her mind when Victor arrived.
Gabriel had forgotten that moment until now.
Thomas continued.
“Daniel said Sophia had discovered someone was using company money to fund something bigger. He didn’t tell me who.”
“Why not go to police?”
Thomas’s expression hardened.
“Daniel thought someone inside your organization had people everywhere.”
Gabriel looked down at the photograph.
“Why did Evelyn come here?”
Thomas hesitated.
“You’ll have to ask her.”
“I’m asking you.”
“She wanted to know what happened to her brother.”
“That’s not enough reason to become my son’s nanny.”
Thomas’s eyes changed.
“You’re right.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel could tell he was lying.
Before Gabriel could push harder, his phone vibrated.
A message from the house.
Leo had an episode at school. Evelyn is taking him home.
Gabriel grabbed his coat.
Thomas called after him.
“Mr. Marino.”
Gabriel stopped.
“Daniel told me one more thing.”
“What?”
Thomas swallowed.
“He said if the wrong person ever learned what Sophia had hidden, your son would be the one in danger.”
Gabriel did not remember leaving the office.
He remembered the elevator.
The car.
Chicago blurring past the windows.
And one thought repeating all the way home.
Evelyn Reed had entered his house under a name that concealed her connection to Daniel.
She had lived beside Leo for seven months.
She knew Sophia.
She knew something about Daniel’s death.
And according to a dead man’s warning, whatever Sophia had hidden could put Gabriel’s son in danger.
When Gabriel reached the estate, he found Evelyn sitting on the floor outside Leo’s room.
She tapped softly against the wall.
Tap.
Tap.
Pause.
Tap.
From inside came the answering rhythm.
Gabriel stood at the end of the hallway.
Evelyn looked up.
She saw the photograph in his hand.
May you like
And all the color left her face.
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