Chapter 6 - The Person He Trusted Last
Norah’s mother, Elaine Bennett, lived sixty miles outside Chicago.
Dominic had a car outside Norah’s building within five minutes.
She hated accepting his help.
She hated the thought of not accepting it more.
They reached Elaine’s small house shortly before midnight.
The porch light was on.
Norah ran.
“Mom!”
Elaine opened the door wearing slippers and holding a paperback.
“Why are you screaming?”
Norah nearly collapsed.
“You’re okay.”
“I was until my daughter arrived with three black SUVs.”
Dominic stayed respectfully near the driveway.
Elaine looked past Norah.
“Who is that?”
“Long story.”
“Is he married?”
“Mom.”
“What? You’re thirty-one.”
“Thirty-two.”
“That’s worse.”
Despite everything, Norah laughed.
The sound broke something inside her.
Elaine hugged her.
When they searched the house, nothing was disturbed.
No sign of Martin.
Then Dominic found an envelope taped beneath Elaine’s mailbox.
Inside was a storage-unit key.
And a note.
Ask Leonard what he saved in 2015.
Leo called one hour later.
Norah answered.
“Where are you?”
“Driving.”
“Martin threatened my mother.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because he threatened mine too.”
“Explain.”
Leo’s voice shook.
“The Bellamy account isn’t mine.”
“It has your name.”
“It has my old credentials. Martin kept them.”
“Why?”
“To create an escape route if he ever needed one.”
Dominic took the phone.
“Where are you, Leonard?”
Leo hesitated.
“South Side.”
“Stop driving.”
“I can fix this.”
“You have demonstrated questionable judgment when attempting that.”
Leo almost laughed.
“I suppose I have.”
“Send your location.”
Twenty minutes later they met Leo at an empty twenty-four-hour laundromat because, as Norah later told him, apparently nobody involved in multimillion-dollar fraud could choose a normal meeting place.
Leo carried a banker’s box.
“What’s that?” Dominic asked.
“The reason Martin wants me frightened.”
Inside were files.
Real files.
Not copies.
Bank records.
Internal memos.
Recorded audit summaries.
Documents Leo had stolen before disappearing twelve years earlier.
“I kept them because I thought one day I’d be brave enough to come back.”
Norah looked at him.
“And were you?”
“No.”
“At least you know.”
Leo nodded.
“I was a coward for twelve years.”
Lily, who had arrived with Peter, shook her head.
“You protected us.”
Leo looked at her.
“Eventually.”
“That counts.”
For a nineteen-year-old who had once almost knelt because someone demanded it, Lily sounded remarkably certain.
Dominic opened a folder.
A transfer authorization showed Martin’s signature.
Another contained Valerie’s uncle’s instructions.
A third showed Gabriel Mercer moving funds years before Valerie entered the scheme.
Then they found something else.
A recent document.
Martin had created the Bellamy account six months ago.
Not to hide stolen money permanently.
To frame Leo if the network collapsed.
Dominic closed the folder.
“I was wrong.”
Leo blinked.
Dominic repeated it.
“I was wrong about you.”
Leo looked almost more uncomfortable hearing that than an accusation.
“I gave you reasons.”
“Yes.”
Dominic held out his hand.
Leo stared at it.
Then shook it.
By morning, authorities had enough information to freeze the missing funds.
Martin was arrested forty-eight hours later in a rented house near the Wisconsin border.
The criminal and civil cases would take months, perhaps years.
But the central betrayal was over.
Valerie accepted an agreement requiring full cooperation.
She would face consequences.
She would also help recover assets.
Dominic met her one final time in a conference room.
Norah was not supposed to be there.
Valerie requested her.
“I want one person in this room who isn’t being paid to agree with Dominic.”
Dominic nearly objected.
Then apparently recognized the irony.
Valerie signed the last page.
Her engagement ring rested on the table.
“I suppose you want this.”
Dominic looked at it.
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“You bought it.”
“I gave it to you.”
“That sounds generous.”
“It isn’t. I just don’t want it.”
Valerie looked at Norah.
“Do you know what I hate most about you?”
Norah leaned back.
“I suspect there’s a list.”
“You weren’t trying to win.”
“No.”
“I was.”
Valerie touched the ring.
“Every room. Every conversation. Every relationship. I thought someone had to lose for me to be safe.”
Norah said quietly, “That sounds exhausting.”
Valerie laughed through tears.
“It was.”
She stood.
At the door, she looked at Dominic.
“I did love you.”
He answered after a long silence.
“I know.”
That hurt her more than disbelief would have.
She left.
Dominic stood at the window.
Norah gathered her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“Work.”
“You still intend to wait tables?”
“People keep ordering dinner.”
“Norah.”
She stopped.
He turned.
“Come work for me.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even ask what job.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not becoming another person on your payroll.”
His expression tightened.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Then why say it that way?”
“Because you need to hear it.”
He looked frustrated.
“You could be good at compliance oversight.”
“I probably could.”
“Then consider it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because right now I don’t know whether you want me because I’m qualified or because you trust me.”
“Both.”
“Exactly.”
He was silent.
Norah softened.
“You just survived discovering that your fiancée, CFO and dead brother were tied to the same lie. You don’t need to rearrange your life around the first person who told you no.”
“You think that’s what this is?”
“I think you don’t know yet.”
Dominic stared at her.
She expected anger.
Instead he nodded.
“You’re probably right.”
That surprised her.
“So what now?” he asked.
“Now you learn to make decisions without asking the waitress.”
His mouth lifted.
“And you?”
“I go back to Bellamy.”
“Why?”
“Because Leo is apparently resigning.”
“He is?”
“He says management has aged him twenty years.”
“Reasonable.”
“And because Lily needs somebody around until she stops apologizing every twelve minutes.”
“I heard that,” Lily called from the hall.
Norah smiled.
Dominic watched her.
Something warm passed between them.
Neither named it.
Norah reached the doorway.
“Dinner sometime?”
Dominic asked.
She turned.
“As a customer?”
“No.”
“As an employer?”
“No.”
“As a man who would like to have dinner with a woman he respects.”
Norah considered him.
Then smiled.
“Ask me again in six months.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Six months?”
“You’ve waited longer for business deals.”
“None this difficult.”
“That sounds like a personal problem.”
She left.
Dominic laughed behind her.
But in the elevator, Norah’s smile faded.
Because she had meant what she said.
She cared about him.
That was exactly why she refused to become the answer to everything he had just lost.
If there was going to be something between them, it could not begin with rescue.
Not his rescue of her.
Not hers of him.
May you like
They would both have to learn to stand first.
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