Chapter 2 - The Thirty Thousand Dollars
By 1:17 in the morning, Mave had asked Vincent the same question six times.
He had refused to answer it six different ways.
They were inside his penthouse overlooking the East River, although penthouse hardly described it.
It looked like a fortress pretending to be a home.
Bullet-resistant glass. Private elevator. Two armed men in the hallway. Cameras covering every entrance.
Mave stood in the center of his living room still wearing the midnight-blue gown from the charity dinner, heels abandoned beside the sofa.
Vincent had removed his jacket.
“Tell me what happened to my father.”
“I’m trying to determine whether the men following us know where you live.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Then stop talking.”
Vincent turned.
Most people probably did not speak to him that way twice.
Mave was too angry to care.
She held up the photograph.
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Vincent stared at Daniel Sullivan’s face.
“My father employed him.”
“My father was an accountant.”
“So were some of the most dangerous men I ever knew.”
Mave laughed once without humor. “My mother thought he worked for a shipping union.”
“He did.”
“And?”
“And he audited companies connected to my father.”
“Connected how?”
Vincent’s jaw tightened. “You already know how.”
Mave looked away.
That hurt worse than she expected.
Three years of pretending.
Three years telling herself she worked for Costa Holdings, not the Costa Syndicate.
Three years carefully avoiding the line between legitimate business and everything underneath it.
Now her father stood on the other side of that line too.
Vincent went to the bar and poured water instead of whiskey.
“Daniel discovered money moving out of several companies. Small amounts at first. Then larger ones.”
“Like thirty thousand dollars.”
“Yes.”
She turned sharply. “You authorized those Harborline transfers.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“To keep someone alive.”
That silenced her.
Vincent set down the glass.
“Nineteen years ago, your father discovered that William Donovan was moving money through freight companies without my father’s approval.”
“Stealing?”
“Partly.”
“What does partly mean?”
“It means money was only the beginning.”
Vincent walked toward the windows.
“Donovan was using legitimate freight routes to move things Anthony Costa had forbidden.”
“What things?”
“Women. Runaways. Undocumented workers. People no one thought anyone would come looking for.”
Mave’s stomach turned.
“My father found out?”
“He found invoices that didn’t match cargo weights. Same way you found Harborline.”
She suddenly understood why Vincent had looked at her strangely whenever she solved something nobody else could.
“You knew I could do what he did.”
“I suspected.”
“You hired me because of him.”
Vincent’s silence stretched too long.
Mave’s face burned.
“Oh my God.”
“Mave.”
“You hired me because of my father.”
“I hired you because you were the best operations coordinator in the applicant pool.”
“And because my last name was Sullivan.”
“Yes.”
She grabbed her shoes.
Vincent stepped toward her.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“No.”
She stared at him. “Excuse me?”
“The men at the Plaza knew your father’s name. Someone followed us. You’re not going home.”
“You don’t get to order me around because you hid the truth from me.”
“I get to stop you from walking into an apartment somebody may already be watching.”
Mave hated that he was probably right.
She dropped the shoes again.
“Then finish.”
Vincent’s shoulders lowered slightly.
“My father learned what Donovan had done. Daniel wanted to go to the authorities.”
“And Anthony Costa didn’t.”
“No.”
“Of course.”
Vincent ignored the bitterness.
“My father believed police officers and city officials were already being paid. He convinced Daniel to wait forty-eight hours while he removed names from the operation and protected witnesses.”
“Did he?”
“Some.”
“What happened after forty-eight hours?”
“Your father disappeared.”
Mave’s throat tightened.
“And Donovan?”
“Claimed Daniel had stolen money and run.”
“My mother never believed that.”
“Neither did I.”
Mave blinked. “You were nineteen.”
“Yes.”
“You remember him?”
Vincent looked directly at her.
“I remember everything about that week.”
Something in his face stopped her next question.
Pain.
Old and deeply buried.
Before Vincent could say more, the penthouse door opened.
Leo entered, rain on his shoulders. His normal humor was gone.
“We found the gray sedan.”
Vincent straightened. “Driver?”
“Gone.”
“Plates?”
“Stolen.”
Leo glanced at Mave.
“But we found this under the passenger seat.”
He held out a cheap prepaid phone.
Vincent took it.
“One outgoing number,” Leo said. “Made at 8:03 tonight.”
“To who?”
Leo looked uncomfortable.
“Donovan.”
Mave’s stomach dropped.
Vincent’s expression became stone.
“He told me he had food poisoning at six.”
Leo nodded. “His apartment’s empty.”
Mave looked at the photograph again.
Donovan between her father and Anthony Costa.
“How long has he worked for you?”
“Twenty-two years,” Vincent said.
“Then he knows everything.”
“Yes.”
“Your routes. Your security. My address.”
“Yes.”
Mave suddenly remembered something.
She crossed the room to where her handbag lay and pulled out her tablet.
“What are you doing?” Vincent asked.
“The Harborline payments.”
She logged into the corporate system.
Three monthly transfers.
Thirty thousand dollars each.
She opened the metadata.
“These were approved through your credentials.”
“I approved them.”
“But somebody accessed the payment records yesterday at 2:13 a.m.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“Who?”
Mave’s fingers moved.
The system took several seconds.
Then the username appeared.
WDONOVAN.
Leo swore.
Mave kept scrolling.
Another document had been opened at the same time.
A protected personnel file.
Her personnel file.
Home address. Emergency contacts. Her mother’s old address. Even the boutique measurements Vincent had ordered.
Mave felt suddenly cold.
“He wasn’t looking for Harborline.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“He was looking for you.”
Mave clicked one final audit record.
The Harborline payment contained a memo field invisible in the normal interface.
She enlarged it.
One line.
FRANK DELANEY — SAFE THROUGH DECEMBER.
Vincent closed his eyes.
“Who is Frank Delaney?” Mave asked.
No answer.
“Vincent.”
He finally looked at her.
“The only man still alive who saw your father on the night he disappeared.”
Mave’s pulse began pounding.
“Where is he?”
“Harborline Trucking.”
Vincent grabbed his jacket.
Mave followed.
He stopped at the elevator.
“You’re staying here.”
“No.”
“Mave.”
“Nineteen years.”
Her voice cracked for the first time.
“I have waited nineteen years for someone to tell me what happened to my father. You are not leaving me behind now.”
Vincent stared at her.
Then his expression softened.
Barely.
“Put your shoes on.”
Twenty minutes later, they crossed the George Washington Bridge beneath sheets of rain.
Mave sat beside Vincent in the back of an armored SUV.
Neither spoke.
Then Vincent’s phone rang.
Leo answered from the front.
His face changed.
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
A security guard at Harborline was shouting.
“Fire department’s coming! The back office is burning!”
Mave looked at Vincent.
He understood exactly what she was thinking.
Someone was destroying evidence.
“Frank?” Vincent demanded.
A pause.
May you like
Then the guard said the words that made the entire vehicle go silent.
“Frank Delaney’s gone.”
