Chapter 3 - Fifteen Million Reasons to Lie
Christa spun around.
Elena screamed.
"Jesus, Christa!"
Christa pressed one hand against her chest.
"What are you doing in here?"
"Going downstairs?"
Her assistant stared at her.
"What are you doing?"
Christa looked at her phone.
The messages had vanished.
"What?"
They were gone.
Not deleted.
Gone.
The entire thread had disappeared.
Elena frowned.
"You look like you saw a ghost."
"Maybe I did."
The elevator doors opened.
Christa stepped into the lobby.
Elena followed.
"Okay. You're terrifying me."
Christa stopped.
"Did Vincent hire me?"
Elena blinked.
"What?"
"Eight years ago. Was Vincent personally involved?"
"I don't know. Why?"
Christa barely heard her.
Memories rearranged themselves.
Vincent appearing unexpectedly at her mother's birthday dinner.
Vincent insisting Christa take the Henderson gala account.
Vincent asking whether she'd ever heard from her father.
At the time, she had thought it was kindness.
Now?
She didn't know what anything meant.
"Go home," Christa said.
"Christa—"
"Please."
Elena studied her face.
Then nodded.
Christa called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
She hurried outside.
A black sedan waited at the curb.
Dion leaned against it.
Christa stopped.
"I told you—"
"I know."
"Then why are you here?"
"I changed my mind about obeying you."
"Dion."
"Your mother isn't answering."
Christa's anger disappeared.
"How do you know?"
"I called her."
"You have her number?"
"Background check."
She glared.
"Still angry about that."
"Understandably."
"Why didn't she answer?"
"I don't know."
Christa opened the passenger door herself.
"Drive."
Dion did.
Twenty minutes later, they reached the modest brick house where Christa's mother had lived for thirty-one years.
The porch light was on.
The front door was open.
Christa was out of the car before Dion stopped completely.
"Mom!"
She ran inside.
"Mom!"
Nothing.
The kitchen light glowed.
Two cups of coffee sat on the table.
One half-finished.
One untouched.
Dion entered behind her.
Christa pointed.
"She had company."
He touched the second cup.
"Still warm."
Christa's phone rang.
MOM.
She answered immediately.
"Mom?"
Silence.
Then breathing.
"Mom?"
A woman's voice whispered.
"Chrissy."
Christa gripped the phone.
"Where are you?"
"Don't come looking."
"What happened?"
"Listen to me."
"Mom—"
"Arthur didn't steal that money."
"I know."
Silence.
"How?"
"Dion."
Her mother inhaled sharply.
"You're with him?"
"Yes."
"Get away from him."
Christa looked at Dion.
"Why?"
"Because Henderson men destroy everything they love."
The call ended.
Christa stared at the phone.
Dion had heard.
His face revealed nothing.
"Tell me she's wrong," Christa said.
He couldn't.
That frightened her more than if he had tried.
They searched the house.
In her mother's bedroom, Christa found an empty suitcase missing from the closet.
No signs of struggle.
On the dresser sat a photograph of Christa as a child.
Under it was a train ticket.
Chicago Union Station.
11:40 p.m.
Christa looked at the clock.
10:58.
"She's going to the locker," she said.
Dion nodded.
They reached Union Station twenty-three minutes later.
Locker 314 wasn't in the public concourse.
Samuel's key opened an old service corridor behind a row of renovated storefronts.
At the end stood a single metal locker.
Christa inserted the key.
"Wait," Dion said.
"No."
She turned it.
Click.
Inside sat a small wooden box.
Christa removed it.
No money.
No ledger.
Only a cassette recorder and another photograph.
She pressed PLAY.
Static.
Then her father's voice filled the corridor.
"My name is Arthur Flores."
Christa covered her mouth.
"If Christa is hearing this, then I failed to come home."
Tears filled her eyes.
"I need you to know something, sweetheart. None of this was your fault."
Christa closed her eyes.
Dion stood silently beside her.
Arthur continued.
"The fifteen million wasn't stolen. It was moved because Vincent Moretti needed to hide payments connected to shell companies he controlled. When I found them, I went to Richard Henderson."
Dion stiffened at his father's name.
"I thought Richard would help me. Instead, he told me the company couldn't survive the scandal."
Dion looked away.
Christa heard pain in his silence.
"So Richard gave me a choice. Disappear, or risk putting Elena and Christa in danger. I left."
Christa began crying.
Not loudly.
Twenty years of grief simply broke loose.
"I thought leaving would protect you. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe a father doesn't get to call abandonment protection. But I loved you every day I was gone."
The tape clicked.
Then Arthur's voice returned.
"Vincent doesn't know I copied the complete ledger."
Dion leaned closer.
"It isn't in Chicago."
Christa wiped her tears.
"The location is hidden in the photograph."
The recording stopped.
Christa grabbed the photograph.
Arthur stood outside a bakery.
Nothing obvious.
Then Dion turned it over.
Three numbers.
Coordinates?
A code?
Christa stared.
Then understood.
"These aren't coordinates."
"What are they?"
"Recipes."
Dion looked at her.
"My father taught me to bake."
She pointed.
"Page forty-one, line eighty-seven, word twelve."
"From what?"
Christa remembered the only thing Arthur had left behind.
His handwritten recipe book.
She looked at Dion.
"It's at my apartment."
Dion's expression changed.
"The apartment you haven't visited since the gala."
Christa's stomach dropped.
They drove there.
The hallway was dark.
Her apartment door stood open.
Dion moved ahead.
Christa grabbed his arm.
"No."
He looked back.
"We go together."
They entered.
Nothing appeared stolen.
But the kitchen had been destroyed.
Cabinets emptied.
Flour scattered.
Drawers ripped out.
Someone had searched for something.
Christa ran to the pantry.
The old recipe book was gone.
Her phone rang.
Vincent Moretti.
She stared at his name.
Dion said nothing.
Christa answered.
"Hello?"
Vincent's familiar voice came through.
"Christa."
Her skin crawled.
"Where's my mother?"
A pause.
Then:
"Your mother is safe."
"Where?"
"That depends on you."
Dion's expression hardened.
Christa kept her voice calm.
"What do you want?"
"The same thing your father stole from me twenty years ago."
"The ledger."
Silence.
Then Vincent laughed softly.
"So Dion finally told you."
"I don't have it."
"No."
Vincent's voice became almost affectionate.
"But you know how to find it."
Christa looked at the ruined kitchen.
"Where's my mother?"
"I'll trade Elena for the ledger."
"No."
Dion looked at her.
Vincent went silent.
Christa continued.
"You've spent twenty years assuming my family is afraid of you."
"Christa—"
"You taught me something tonight."
"What?"
"People make mistakes when they underestimate me."
She ended the call.
Dion stared.
"That was either extremely brave or extremely reckless."
"Probably both."
Then Christa noticed something in the flour covering the floor.
A footprint.
Beside it lay a torn page.
Not from the recipe book.
From a notebook.
Her mother's handwriting covered it.
Christa picked it up.
There was one sentence.
ARTHUR CAME BACK THREE YEARS AGO.
Christa stopped breathing.
Beneath it was an address.
And beside the address, her mother had written:
DION MUST NEVER KNOW.
Christa slowly looked at him.
Dion had gone pale.
Then someone knocked on the apartment door.
Three times.
A man's voice spoke from the hallway.
"Christa?"
Her knees nearly gave way.
She knew that voice.
May you like
She had just heard it on the cassette.
Her father's voice.
