Chapter 4 - WHAT MARISSA STOLE“Back exit?” Marcus asked.
Nathan scanned the basement.
“Loading dock.”
They grabbed the black bag.
The elevator display reached 2.
Marcus killed the lights.
Darkness swallowed the basement.
“Move.”
Nathan followed him between storage rows.
The elevator chimed behind them.
Doors opened.
Footsteps.
At least two people.
A flashlight beam cut through the darkness.
Nathan's pulse hammered.
Marcus stopped at a steel door.
Locked.
“Problem?”
Marcus examined the keypad.
“Electronic.”
Nathan pulled out his phone.
“No service.”
Behind them, a man shouted.
“Cole!”
They had been seen.
Marcus rammed his shoulder into the door once.
Nothing.
Again.
Metal groaned.
Nathan joined him.
On the third impact, the latch tore loose.
They stumbled into a concrete loading corridor.
“Go!”
They ran.
A heavy object struck the door behind them.
Nathan reached the ramp leading toward street level.
A black SUV waited outside with the engine running.
Not theirs.
Marcus grabbed Nathan.
“Other way.”
They climbed a narrow stairwell and emerged inside an adjoining parking garage.
Nathan called 911.
By the time police arrived, the men in the basement and the SUV had vanished.
The storage unit had been wiped clean except for fingerprints that later proved useless.
But Nathan still had the bag.
And the recording.
At dawn, Marcus spread the documents across a private conference room at Cole Meridian headquarters.
Rachel joined them.
She listened to Daniel Cole's recording twice.
Afterward, she simply stared at Nathan.
“You think Victor killed your father?”
“I think my father thought he would.”
“That isn't proof.”
“No.”
Marcus pointed toward the invoices.
“But this might become proof of other crimes.”
Brightway Facility Services appeared everywhere.
Invoices for workers who did not officially exist.
Cash reimbursements.
Housing deductions.
Transportation charges.
Penalty fees.
Several employees' wages had been reduced to nearly zero after invented debts were deducted.
Rachel looked sick.
“This happened in our buildings.”
Nathan's voice was cold.
“Yes.”
“But if we expose it publicly without knowing who's involved internally—”
“They destroy the evidence.”
“Exactly.”
Marcus turned to a worker list.
“Marissa Moore.”
Her name appeared repeatedly.
Then stopped seventeen months earlier.
“Why would she disappear from the records if she still worked there?” Rachel asked.
Marcus examined another document.
“Because she may have been transferred to an off-book roster.”
Nathan frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Workers too vulnerable to complain. Undocumented people. People with debt. People being threatened.”
“But Marissa is a U.S. citizen.”
“Doesn't mean she can't be coerced.”
Rachel searched another file.
“I found something.”
A payment sheet listed:
M. Moore — Special Custodial / Executive Level — C.M. Tower.
Nathan looked around.
“This building.”
“Executive level?” Marcus asked.
Rachel's eyes widened.
“The forty-second floor.”
Nathan's private offices occupied forty through forty-three.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Nathan remembered nothing.
Of course he didn't.
He arrived before sunrise, left late, traveled constantly.
People cleaned around executives like ghosts.
“Security footage?”
“Archives only retain ninety days.”
“Access logs?”
“Longer.”
They pulled them.
Marissa's ID had entered the forty-second floor dozens of times.
Usually late at night.
Then Nathan noticed another badge appearing on almost the same dates.
Ethan Walsh.
Procurement director.
The man whose department had processed the fraudulent contract.
Marcus leaned back.
“There's your internal connection.”
Nathan stood.
“We bring him in.”
“No.”
Marcus's response was immediate.
“He doesn't know what we know.”
“He may know where Marissa is.”
“And if you confront him, he'll warn Dane.”
Nathan hated waiting.
But Marcus was right.
Instead, they watched.
Ethan arrived at 8:07 that morning wearing a gray suit and carrying coffee.
He joked with receptionists.
Held the elevator for a junior analyst.
He looked exactly like the man Nathan had trusted for nine years.
Nathan watched through security cameras from a private office.
At 9:14, Ethan received a call.
His entire posture changed.
He walked outside.
Marcus followed from a distance.
At 10:02, Ethan entered a parking garage three blocks away.
A black SUV arrived.
Victor Dane stepped out.
Even on grainy camera footage, Nathan recognized him.
Tall.
Silver hair.
Perfect suit.
No hurry.
Ethan handed Victor an envelope.
Victor said something.
Ethan shook his head.
Victor grabbed him by the lapel.
Then released him.
Five minutes later they separated.
Marcus called.
“Your procurement director looks scared.”
“Can you hear them?”
“No.”
“Follow Ethan.”
“I am.”
Nathan turned to Rachel.
“Pull every financial record we legally control on Ethan's expense reimbursements.”
They found more within an hour.
Hotel rooms.
Unusual consulting fees.
Payments routed through a company belonging to Ethan's brother-in-law.
Then Rachel stopped scrolling.
“Nathan.”
“What?”
“There's something else.”
She enlarged a scanned invoice.
The company receiving payments was North Star Youth Outreach.
Nathan knew the name.
It was a charity.
A charity Victor Dane publicly supported.
“What are we paying them for?”
“We aren't.”
Rachel pointed.
“These transfers came from Brightway.”
Marcus returned shortly after noon.
He looked grim.
“Ethan drove to St. Catherine's Church.”
“So?”
“He left an envelope in a donation box.”
“What was inside?”
Marcus placed photographs on the table.
Cash.
And a handwritten note.
M.M. alive. South facility until Friday.
Nathan stood immediately.
“Where is South facility?”
“We don't know.”
“Find it.”
Marcus nodded.
“But listen. If Friday is a deadline, we don't have much time.”
Nathan thought of Caleb.
“Then don't waste any.”
Back at the hospital, Lena had improved enough to sit up.
She was eating applesauce when Nathan entered.
Caleb sat beside her.
“Slow,” he warned.
Lena frowned.
“I hungry.”
“I know.”
She noticed Nathan.
“Suit man.”
Caleb looked embarrassed.
“Lena.”
Nathan smiled faintly.
“I've been called worse.”
Lena held up her spoon.
“You find Mommy?”
The smile disappeared.
“Not yet.”
Lena lowered the spoon.
“Mommy cry.”
Nathan crouched.
“When?”
“Night.”
“What night?”
“The bad man night.”
Caleb stiffened.
“Lena, don't.”
Nathan looked at him.
“Why not?”
“She doesn't understand.”
Children often understood far more than adults preferred.
Nathan turned gently toward Lena.
“Did you see the bad man?”
She nodded.
“What did he do?”
Lena pointed toward her own arm.
“Hurt Cal.”
Caleb looked away.
“And Mommy?”
Lena's lip trembled.
“Mommy hide paper.”
Nathan froze.
“What paper?”
“Blue paper.”
“Where?”
She pointed vaguely downward.
“Princess.”
Caleb frowned.
“Princess?”
Then his eyes widened.
He jumped up.
“Her book.”
“What book?”
“Lena has this princess coloring book. She carries it everywhere.”
“Where is it?”
“At the apartment.”
Nathan and Marcus returned immediately.
Police had secured the apartment, but nobody had noticed the battered coloring book beneath Lena's small bed.
Nathan opened it.
Most pages held wild crayon scribbles.
Yellow castles.
Purple horses.
Green suns.
Halfway through, something had been glued between two pages.
Marcus carefully separated them.
A folded blue document slipped out.
It was a bank statement.
Not Marissa's.
Daniel Cole Foundation Trust.
Nathan stared.
The account had once belonged to his father.
It should have been closed after Daniel's death.
Yet transactions continued for years afterward.
Millions moved through it.
Rachel reviewed photographs remotely.
“These aren't legitimate foundation expenses.”
Nathan scanned the recipient names.
Brightway.
North Star.
Dane Holdings.
Then another company.
Marlowe Medical Research.
Nathan frowned.
“Why a medical research company?”
Marcus typed the name into his laptop.
“Defunct. Shut down ten years ago.”
“When?”
Marcus looked up.
“Three months after your father died.”
Nathan's pulse quickened.
“Who owned it?”
Marcus waited for the corporate filing to load.
Then his expression changed.
“Victor Dane.”
Nathan looked again at the last words his father had recorded.
My heart didn't kill me.
A cold thought formed.
“What if he wasn't speaking metaphorically?”
Marcus understood.
“You think Marlowe Medical had something to do with Daniel's death.”
Nathan's phone rang.
Caleb.
Nathan answered instantly.
“What's wrong?”
He heard screaming in the background.
“Caleb?”
“Somebody came for Lena!”
Nathan was already moving.
“Who?”
“I don't know! The nurse stopped him!”
“Where are you?”
“Her room!”
“Lock the door.”
“They said he had paperwork!”
“What paperwork?”
Caleb was crying now.
“He said he's our uncle.”
Nathan stopped.
“Do you have an uncle?”
“No!”
Then another voice came through the phone.
Deep.
Calm.
Close.
“Give me the phone, son.”
Caleb shouted.
The call disconnected.
Nathan ran for the elevator.
By the time he reached the hospital, police were everywhere.
The man was gone.
Caleb was safe.
Lena was safe.
But on her pillow, someone had left a white envelope.
Inside was a photograph taken less than twelve hours earlier.
Marissa Moore sat tied to a chair.
Alive.
Behind her was a painted wall with a single number.
17
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
Friday. Bring the blue paper. Or the children lose their mother.
Related Stories
