Chapter 3 - The Dead Man’s Signature
Dante hit the floor with Harper as the window exploded.
Glass scattered across the room.
Marco fired toward the darkness outside while security alarms screamed.
Harper couldn’t hear herself breathing.
“Stay down!”
Dante covered her with his body.
Another shot struck stone.
Then silence.
Security teams flooded the grounds.
Harper pushed against Dante.
“My mother.”
“Wait.”
“That was my mother!”
She crawled toward the broken window.
Dante pulled her back.
“If you go outside now, you might make her funeral real this time.”
The cruelty of the sentence stopped her.
Because he was right.
Minutes later, Marco returned.
“Shooter escaped.”
“And the woman?”
“Gone.”
Harper stared at him.
“What do you mean gone?”
“Vehicle was abandoned.”
She ran outside before Dante could stop her.
The car remained at the drive.
Driver door open.
Engine running.
Blood on the passenger seat.
Not much.
Enough.
Harper touched the hood.
Warm.
Dante approached behind her.
“You’re sure it was Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
She opened the glove compartment.
Empty.
Then she saw an envelope beneath the seat.
HARPER.
Her hands trembled.
Inside was a bank statement dated six years earlier.
Three days after Evelyn’s supposed death.
A withdrawal.
$250,000.
Authorized by—
Harper stared.
“Arthur Pendleton.”
Dante took the page.
“Why would your boss pay your dead mother?”
“I didn’t work for him then.”
“Maybe you were never the reason.”
On the back, handwritten numbers formed an account reference.
Harper recognized the pattern.
Vanguard.
She looked at Dante.
“The theft started six years ago.”
“Before Arthur hired you.”
“Before I even knew him.”
Dante’s phone rang.
Marco answered his own at the same time.
Something was happening.
Dante listened.
His face hardened.
“What?”
Marco looked at Harper.
“Arthur Pendleton was found.”
“Where?”
“His Manhattan office.”
Harper knew before he finished.
“Dead?”
Marco nodded.
“Shot once.”
Harper closed her eyes.
Dante asked, “Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Marco hesitated.
“He left a message.”
“For whom?”
“Harper.”
The room seemed to contract.
“What did it say?”
Marco turned his phone around.
A photograph showed Arthur’s desk.
Across a legal pad, written in blood, were four words.
ASK WHO HARPER REALLY IS.
Harper stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Dante watched her carefully.
“Why?”
“Because I know who I am.”
“Do you?”
She turned on him.
“Don’t.”
“I’m asking.”
“And I’m telling you not to.”
Harper walked away.
She had been Evelyn Hayes’s daughter for thirty years.
Her father, Thomas, had died when she was eleven.
Her mother had raised her alone.
There were photographs.
School records.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
Normal memories.
Real memories.
No criminal empires.
No stolen millions.
No fake deaths.
Dante followed.
“Harper.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“Arthur wanted you asking that question.”
“Arthur was dying.”
“Exactly.”
She hated the logic.
Dante continued.
“If he used his last seconds to write that, he believed it mattered.”
Harper turned toward him.
“Then help me find out.”
They returned inside.
Gabriel remained under guard.
Harper spent the next hour tracing the account on Evelyn’s statement.
It led through a dissolved company.
Then another.
Finally, a private bank account opened thirty-one years earlier.
The owner was deceased.
Salvatore Lombardi.
Dante’s father.
Harper looked up.
Dante had gone completely still.
“Your father knew my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“He paid her?”
“I don’t know.”
Harper searched deeper.
One archived document appeared.
A consulting agreement.
Evelyn Hayes.
Salvatore Lombardi.
Harper opened it.
The file contained scanned pages.
Her mother had worked as a forensic accountant.
For Dante’s father.
Dante read silently.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
Harper continued scrolling.
Evelyn had been hired to investigate internal theft from Lombardi companies.
Exactly what Harper had just done.
Six years earlier.
Harper felt sick.
“She found the same thing.”
“Maybe.”
“No. Look.”
She pointed.
Vanguard Logistics.
Apex Maritime.
The names were there.
The scheme had existed for years.
At the bottom of the final page was a handwritten note from Evelyn.
SALVATORE — THE MONEY ISN’T THE REAL TARGET. SOMEONE IS BUILDING A PAPER TRAIL TO MAKE YOUR SON LOOK RESPONSIBLE.
Dante read it twice.
“My father died two weeks after this.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
Harper looked at him.
“Are you sure?”
Dante didn’t answer.
She opened the next file.
Death certificate.
Then medical records.
Then a legal authorization.
Harper frowned.
“What?”
“The signature.”
“What about it?”
She enlarged it.
The signature belonged to Salvatore Lombardi.
Dated nine days after his death.
Dante leaned toward the screen.
“That can’t be.”
Harper checked metadata.
The document authorized transfer of ownership in a warehouse at Pier Seventeen.
To Vanguard Logistics.
She looked at Dante.
“Someone forged your dead father’s signature.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Who notarized it?”
Harper scrolled.
The name appeared.
ARTHUR PENDLETON.
Neither spoke.
Then Harper saw a second witness.
Her breath caught.
EVELYN HAYES.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
“My mother wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know her.”
“You thought she was dead.”
Harper flinched.
Dante regretted it immediately.
But before he could speak, Harper’s phone buzzed.
A video file had arrived.
Unknown sender.
She opened it.
Evelyn appeared on screen.
Alive.
Terrified.
“Harper, if you’re seeing this, Arthur is dead.”
Harper gripped the phone.
Evelyn looked behind her.
“You need to know why I disappeared.”
The video glitched.
“I didn’t leave because I was afraid of the Lombardis.”
Another glitch.
“I left because I discovered who Harper’s father really was.”
Harper stopped breathing.
The video froze.
Then a new message appeared.
COME TO PIER SEVENTEEN ALONE.
Beneath it was a photograph.
May you like
Evelyn tied to a chair.
And behind her stood a man Dante recognized immediately.
