Chapter 3 - The Numbers Behind the Laughter
Dante pulled Beatrice behind the heavy conference-room curtain seconds before the door opened.
They stood inches apart.
Beatrice could hear her own heartbeat.
Vanessa entered.
She crossed the room, opened a cabinet, removed a document envelope, and left.
Neither moved until the door clicked shut.
Beatrice whispered, “My father.”
Dante nodded.
“You heard it too.”
“Thomas Gallagher died when I was fourteen.”
“What did he do?”
“He was an auditor.”
Dante became very still.
“For whom?”
“Banks. Private firms. Whoever hired his company.”
“Did he ever audit Wilkes?”
“I don't know.”
They returned to Beatrice's office and searched archived client records.
Nothing.
Then Beatrice remembered something.
Her father had always used the same four-digit code.
Her birthday.
She searched archived files by those digits.
One result appeared.
Audit 0417.
Restricted.
Created nineteen years ago.
Client name hidden.
Beatrice opened the metadata.
Author: Thomas Gallagher.
Her hands began shaking.
Dante noticed.
“You don't have to do this tonight.”
“Yes, I do.”
She entered her credentials.
Denied.
Then she tried her father's old employee identification number, which she still remembered from a photograph of him wearing his company badge.
The file opened.
Beatrice stared.
The client was Gallagher & Wilkes.
Her father had audited the firm months before his death.
His report identified unexplained transfers.
Shell vendors.
False consulting invoices.
Millions missing.
The same pattern Beatrice had discovered.
“My father found it.”
Dante read over her shoulder.
“He found Wilkes.”
A note appeared at the end.
CLIENT REFUSED CORRECTIVE ACTION. EXTERNAL REPORT PENDING.
But there was no external report.
Thomas Gallagher died before filing it.
The official story had been simple.
A traffic accident.
Rain.
A dangerous intersection.
Beatrice had believed it for nineteen years.
Now she didn't know what to believe.
She covered her mouth.
Dante pulled a chair beside her.
“I need you to listen to me.”
She looked at him.
“Don't turn a spreadsheet into proof of something it doesn't prove.”
“My father died.”
“I know.”
“He found the same fraud.”
“I know.”
“And then he died.”
“That makes questions. Not answers.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
It was strangely comforting to hear restraint from the man everyone else feared.
“You're supposed to be the dangerous one.”
“I am.”
“Then why are you the person telling me not to assume the worst?”
“Because you've spent eleven years trusting the wrong man. I don't want anger choosing your next one.”
She looked at him.
Something between them shifted.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Trust.
A small amount.
But real.
They spent the next two hours copying evidence.
By 3:00 a.m., Beatrice had enough to establish that her credentials had been used while she was absent.
By 3:30, she discovered Wilkes had created Gallagher Consulting using an address belonging to a storage facility.
At 4:05, Dante found the connection that made him curse.
One of the fraudulent Moretti companies had been used to make it appear that Dante's legitimate property firm received illicit payments.
“They're framing both of us,” Beatrice said.
“Different reasons.”
“Why you?”
“Because my name makes a convenient explanation.”
“And me?”
“Because nobody thought you'd fight.”
Beatrice looked at the gold dress she'd once considered too bold.
“They miscalculated.”
Dante smiled.
“Yes.”
At dawn, they met an independent forensic accountant named Samuel Reed.
Samuel was sixty-seven and had known Beatrice's father.
The moment he saw Thomas Gallagher's report, he removed his glasses.
“Where did you get this?”
“Company archive.”
Samuel looked at Beatrice.
“Your father came to me.”
Her stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Three days before he died.”
Samuel opened an old cabinet.
“He said he'd found something large enough to destroy careers.”
“Why didn't you tell anyone?”
“I tried.”
He handed her a copy of a letter.
Thomas had written that if anything happened to him, his evidence should go to regulators.
But the attachments listed in the letter were missing.
“Someone took them,” Samuel said.
“Wilkes?”
“I never knew.”
Dante asked, “Who knew Thomas had visited you?”
Samuel hesitated.
“One other person.”
“Who?”
“Your mother.”
Beatrice stared.
“My mother?”
“She asked me to stay silent after Thomas died.”
“Why?”
“She was terrified.”
“Of Wilkes?”
Samuel looked toward Dante.
“Of everyone.”
Beatrice left Samuel's office with more questions than answers.
She drove to Queens.
Her mother, Margaret Gallagher, lived in the same brick house where Beatrice had grown up.
Margaret opened the door.
Then saw Dante behind her daughter.
Her face drained.
“Bea.”
“We need to talk.”
Margaret's eyes fixed on Dante.
“No.”
“Mom.”
“Not with him here.”
Dante stepped back.
“I'll wait outside.”
Beatrice entered.
Her mother sat at the kitchen table.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Beatrice placed Thomas's report down.
Margaret began crying before she touched it.
“You knew.”
“I knew enough.”
“Dad discovered Wilkes was stealing.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“You were fourteen.”
“I haven't been fourteen for nineteen years.”
Margaret wiped her eyes.
“Your father believed the truth protected people. He was wrong.”
Beatrice recoiled.
“Don't say that.”
“I watched them bury him and then watched men I didn't know sit outside this house for weeks.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
“Wilkes?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why did you let me work for him?”
Margaret's face broke.
“I tried to stop you.”
“You told me it was a good job!”
“Because by then I thought the danger had passed.”
Beatrice stood.
“You let me spend eleven years working beside the man Dad was investigating.”
“I was afraid.”
“So was Dad.”
“Yes.”
Margaret's voice sharpened.
“And he died.”
The words hit harder than shouting.
Beatrice turned away.
Her mother reached for her.
“I thought if we stayed ordinary, we'd be safe.”
Beatrice laughed bitterly.
“Ordinary.”
She thought of every dress she hadn't bought.
Every insult she'd swallowed.
Every promotion she hadn't requested.
Every time she'd tried to occupy less space.
“Mom, I spent half my life trying to disappear.”
Margaret whispered, “I know.”
“And it didn't save me.”
“No.”
Beatrice sat again.
“Then help me.”
Margaret stared at her daughter.
Finally, she stood.
She went upstairs.
When she returned, she carried an old sewing box.
Inside was a brass key.
“Your father gave me this the night before he died.”
“What does it open?”
“He never told me.”
A number was engraved on it.
Dante examined it when Beatrice returned outside.
“Safe-deposit key.”
“Can you tell which bank?”
“No.”
Margaret appeared in the doorway.
“Wait.”
She held an old photograph.
Thomas Gallagher stood beside three men.
Samuel Reed.
A younger Harold Wilkes.
And a fourth man.
Dante took the photograph.
For the first time since Beatrice met him, his composure vanished.
“No.”
Beatrice looked at the fourth man.
“Who is he?”
Dante didn't answer.
“Dante?”
His eyes remained on the photograph.
“My father.”
Beatrice stared at him.
Their fathers had known each other.
Neither of them had known.
Then Dante turned the photograph over.
Four words were written on the back.
FIRST MANHATTAN. BOX 317.
Beatrice grabbed her coat.
They reached the bank before noon.
The manager confirmed the box existed.
It had not been opened in nineteen years.
Beatrice inserted the brass key.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a single sealed envelope.
Her father's handwriting covered the front.
BEATRICE—IF YOU ARE READING THIS, TRUST NO ONE UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT MORETTI DID.
Beatrice looked at Dante.
Neither spoke.
May you like
She slid one finger beneath the envelope flap.
Then she began to open it.
