Chapter 2 - The Hand Nobody Expected
“Don't touch anything.”
Dante stood outside Beatrice's apartment while she stared through the open doorway.
“My cat is in there.”
“You have a cat?”
“That's what you took from that sentence?”
Dante glanced at her.
“What does it look like?”
“Orange. Overweight. Judgmental.”
A soft meow came from the hallway.
Beatrice turned.
An enormous orange cat emerged from behind a laundry basket belonging to her neighbor.
“Archibald!”
She scooped him up.
Dante looked at the animal.
Archibald looked back.
Neither appeared impressed.
“He got out,” Beatrice whispered.
“Good.”
“My files.”
Dante stopped her before she entered.
Two men who had accompanied him checked the apartment first.
Beatrice hadn't wanted to leave the gala with Dante Moretti.
She had wanted even less to go home alone after receiving that photograph.
Twenty minutes later, she stood in her hallway wearing a gold gown while her entire life seemed to have been pulled apart.
Drawers open.
Couch cushions removed.
Desk emptied.
Nothing expensive appeared missing.
The television remained.
Her mother's jewelry box remained.
Her laptop was gone.
So was the external drive containing three years of accounting backups.
“They knew exactly what they wanted,” Beatrice said.
Dante crouched near her desk.
“What about the folder?”
She held it tighter.
“I still have it.”
“Copies?”
“At work.”
“Where?”
Beatrice hesitated.
“Not somewhere Wilkes would think to look.”
Dante stood.
“Good.”
She studied him.
“Why are you helping me?”
“You found transactions using my companies.”
“That explains why you're interested in the ledger.”
“Not why I'm helping you.”
“Then why?”
He didn't answer immediately.
Beatrice remembered the ballroom.
She’s my queen.
The words had spread through the gala like fire.
By tomorrow, they would probably be all over Manhattan.
“You realize people are going to believe that ridiculous thing you said.”
“What thing?”
She stared.
“Your queen.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?”
“You preferred accountant?”
“I prefer Beatrice.”
He nodded.
“So do I.”
That should not have made her heart move.
It did.
She looked away.
“Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Be charming.”
“I've never been accused of that.”
“You're doing a terrible job proving it.”
For a moment, tension loosened.
Then Beatrice saw something beneath the desk.
A small black object.
“Wait.”
Dante blocked her.
He picked it up with a handkerchief.
A flash drive.
Beatrice frowned.
“That isn't mine.”
A strip of white tape was attached.
One word had been written on it.
GALLAGHER.
Her surname.
Dante looked at her.
“Do you have a computer that wasn't here during the break-in?”
“My work laptop.”
“Where?”
“In my office.”
“Then we're going back.”
At Gallagher & Wilkes, the building was almost empty.
The gala continued upstairs, but the accounting floors were dark.
Beatrice entered her office.
She removed a calculator from a drawer.
Then pressed a hidden latch beneath the bottom.
A false panel lifted.
Dante raised an eyebrow.
“You hide financial evidence under a calculator?”
“Nobody voluntarily touches an accountant's calculator.”
“That's either brilliant or depressing.”
“Both.”
She removed a backup laptop.
The flash drive opened to one encrypted spreadsheet.
Beatrice studied it.
“These aren't my files.”
Dante stood behind her.
Rows of transfers appeared.
Companies.
Dates.
Amounts.
Initials.
The transactions stretched back nine years.
Beatrice's pulse accelerated.
“This is the ledger.”
“The one in the message?”
“I think so.”
She scrolled.
Then stopped.
“Dante.”
One column contained employee initials.
BG.
Repeated dozens of times.
Her initials.
Beside them were approvals for transfers she had never seen.
“They used my credentials.”
“How?”
“I don't know.”
“Can you prove you didn't authorize them?”
“Yes. Most happened outside my login hours.”
She kept scrolling.
Then found something worse.
One transfer was dated four years earlier.
The recipient:
GALLAGHER CONSULTING LLC.
Beatrice stared.
“I've never owned a company.”
Dante leaned closer.
“Someone made one in your name.”
“And sent it money.”
“How much?”
She clicked.
$2.1 million.
Beatrice felt sick.
“They weren't only stealing.”
Dante understood.
“They were building a fall guy.”
“Fall woman.”
His face hardened.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Eleven years.”
“They chose you because you'd been here long enough to make the story believable.”
“And invisible enough that nobody would question it.”
Dante looked at her.
“You're not invisible.”
“I was until tonight.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“You were ignored. There's a difference.”
Beatrice looked at the screen.
Her entire career suddenly seemed constructed around a trap she hadn't known existed.
Late nights.
Extra assignments.
Wilkes insisting that certain reconciliations be performed under her credentials.
Her loyalty hadn't protected her.
It had made her useful.
Her phone rang.
Wilkes.
She let it ring.
Again.
Again.
Then a voicemail arrived.
Beatrice played it.
Wilkes's voice filled the office.
“Beatrice, whatever you think you've found, you don't understand it. Come upstairs alone. We can fix this.”
Dante almost smiled.
“He's frightened.”
“I've worked for him eleven years. I've never heard him sound like that.”
“Good.”
Beatrice closed the laptop.
“I need evidence that will survive more than a frightened man's denial.”
“What do you need?”
“Server logs. Authorization records. Vendor registration documents.”
“Can you access them?”
“Some.”
“And the rest?”
She looked toward the executive floor.
“Wilkes's office.”
They returned upstairs.
The ballroom was thinning.
When Beatrice entered beside Dante, people stared.
Vanessa approached.
Her earlier confidence was gone.
“Beatrice.”
“What?”
“I didn't mean anything earlier.”
“Yes, you did.”
Vanessa blinked.
Beatrice had never spoken to her that way.
Neither had Beatrice expected how good it would feel.
“You laughed because you thought it was safe,” Beatrice continued. “Now you're apologizing because you think it isn't.”
Vanessa looked at Dante.
“That has nothing to do with—”
“It has everything to do with it.”
Beatrice walked past her.
Dante followed.
“You didn't need me for that.”
“No.”
“I told you.”
“Told me what?”
“You could rescue yourself.”
Wilkes's office was locked.
Beatrice used her accounting access card.
Red light.
Denied.
“Changed already.”
Dante studied the electronic lock.
“Do you know another way?”
“Records room connects to his conference room.”
They entered through accounting.
The records room door opened.
The conference room beyond it was dark.
Beatrice crossed toward Wilkes's office.
Then stopped.
A light was on inside.
Someone was moving.
Dante put a finger to his lips.
A drawer slammed.
Beatrice recognized the voice that followed.
Vanessa.
“She found it. I know she did.”
A man's voice answered.
Wilkes.
“Then we move tonight.”
“What about Beatrice?”
Silence.
Then Wilkes spoke.
“By morning, everyone will believe the money was hers.”
Beatrice went cold.
Dante's jaw tightened.
Vanessa whispered something they couldn't hear.
Then Wilkes answered clearly.
“No. Moretti doesn't know who she really is.”
Beatrice looked at Dante.
His expression changed.
Who she really is?
A phone rang inside the office.
Wilkes answered.
“Yes?”
A pause.
Then:
“You found her father's file?”
Beatrice stopped breathing.
Her father had been dead for nineteen years.
Dante watched her.
Inside the office, Wilkes lowered his voice.
But Beatrice heard the final sentence.
“Bring it here. If Gallagher sees what's inside, everything is over.”
Footsteps approached the conference-room door.
May you like
The handle turned.
Someone was coming through.
