Chapter 3 - The Locked Drawer
Megan lasted one night in the east guest suite before declaring war on the arrangement.
At seven the next morning, she entered my breakfast room carrying Noah and a legal pad.
“I have terms.”
I lowered my coffee.
“Terms?”
“For staying here.”
“You’re an employee in protective housing, not negotiating a merger.”
“Then this should be easier.”
Nancy coughed into her hand to hide a laugh.
Megan sat across from me.
“First, I keep working.”
“No.”
“Then I leave.”
I stared at her.
She stared back.
“Fine.”
“Second, Noah does not get bodyguards following him into the playroom.”
“He is eighteen months old.”
“Exactly. He doesn’t need to grow up thinking armed men are furniture.”
“Two guards at the hallway.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“One and the camera.”
“Done.”
She wrote it down.
“Third, nobody searches my purse without asking me.”
I looked at Marcus.
He looked away.
“Agreed.”
“Fourth, you do not pay Ethan’s debt without telling me.”
“I’m not paying it.”
“Good.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
She put down the pen.
“You stop looking at me like I’m evidence.”
That one landed.
“I don’t.”
“You absolutely do.”
“You’re inside my house because a rival organization may be using your family to reach me.”
“That doesn’t make me guilty.”
“No.”
“But you think I might be.”
I did not answer quickly enough.
Her face tightened.
“Right.”
She stood.
“Megan.”
“I have laundry.”
“You are not doing laundry today.”
“Then I have aggressively protected free time.”
She left.
Nancy poured more coffee into my cup.
“You deserved that.”
I looked at her.
She had worked for my family since I was twenty-one and feared me less than anyone alive.
“You’ve become opinionated.”
“I’m sixty-two. It’s one of the few free benefits.”
Two hours later, Marcus brought me the background file on Ethan Foster.
Petty theft at nineteen. Possession at twenty-four. Rehab twice. No violent charges. Then a strange gap.
Three years earlier, Ethan had worked for a bookkeeping contractor used by one of my legitimate construction subsidiaries.
I read the line again.
“Which subsidiary?”
“Southline Development.”
I went cold.
Southline was where my father’s oldest financial records were stored.
And where, twenty years ago, the accounts connected to the night he died had disappeared.
“Did Megan know?”
“We don’t know.”
“Find out.”
At noon, I went to the records room myself.
The locked drawer was at the bottom of a steel cabinet.
Only three people had keys.
Marcus.
Me.
And Victor Hale.
Victor was my father’s former attorney and the closest thing I had to family after the shooting.
He had taught me contracts, strategy, and how to survive men who smiled while planning funerals.
The drawer opened.
Inside should have been a black ledger.
It was gone.
My pulse slowed.
That was always a bad sign.
I called Victor.
He answered on the second ring.
“Dominic.”
“Where is the Southline ledger?”
Silence.
Then, “Which one?”
“Do not insult me.”
A pause.
“I haven’t touched those records in years.”
“You still have access.”
“So does Marcus.”
“Marcus is standing in front of me.”
Victor exhaled.
“You’re sick. Nancy told me.”
“I was.”
“Then rest.”
“Where is the ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
I ended the call.
Marcus said, “You think Victor took it?”
“I think everybody lies eventually.”
“Even Megan?”
I looked at him.
He knew better than to ask by accident.
“What did you find?”
He placed a copied employment form on the table.
Ethan Foster had worked six months in Southline archives.
His supervisor had been Victor Hale.
The name sat on the page like a fuse.
That evening, I found Megan in the guest suite folding Noah’s tiny shirts.
She looked up.
“If you’re here to say I can’t fold laundry either, I’m leaving through the window.”
“Did Ethan ever work for Southline Development?”
Her hands stopped.
“Yes.”
“You knew.”
“I knew he did bookkeeping for some real estate company.”
“My company.”
She looked at me carefully.
“I didn’t know that until I applied here.”
That answer was too quick.
“You applied here because of him?”
“No.”
“Megan.”
She put the shirt down.
“I applied because Nancy posted the job and I needed rent money.”
“Did Ethan tell you anything about Southline?”
She looked toward Noah, asleep in the portable crib.
Then back at me.
“Once.”
“What?”
“Three years ago he showed up at my apartment drunk. He kept saying he had found something that could get him killed.”
The room seemed to lose air.
“What did he find?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe.”
She crossed her arms.
“He said numbers were wrong. Payments going to dead companies. He said his supervisor told him to forget what he saw.”
“Victor.”
“I didn’t know his name.”
“When did Ethan start using again?”
“Two months later.”
A pattern began forming in my head.
Not a comfortable one.
“Where is Ethan now?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus entered before I could ask more.
His face told me enough.
“We found his car.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned near Lakewood.”
Megan went pale.
“And Ethan?”
“No sign.”
She grabbed her phone.
I caught her wrist before she could move.
“No.”
“Let go.”
“If Varga has him, you do not go looking alone.”
“He’s my brother.”
“And you have a son asleep ten feet away.”
Her eyes filled, but she refused to cry.
“I can’t just sit here.”
“You won’t.”
“Then what?”
I looked at Marcus.
“Bring me everyone who worked Southline archives three years ago.”
He nodded.
Megan stared at me.
“What are you thinking?”
“That your brother’s debt may be real.”
“And?”
“But the reason Varga wants him may have nothing to do with money.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A man’s voice said, “Dominic Mason.”
No greeting.
No hesitation.
Then Ethan Foster spoke in the background.
“Megan, don’t—”
A sharp sound cut him off.
Megan lunged toward the phone.
“Ethan!”
The caller laughed.
“Now that we have your attention, Mr. Mason, I suggest you find what your father hid.”
The line went dead.
Megan stared at me.
“What did your father hide?”
I looked toward the locked drawer in my office, already knowing the answer.
May you like
A ledger.
A ledger that had disappeared the same week Megan Foster entered my house.
