Chapter 2 - Everyone Stays
Nobody reached for the phone.
It rang four times.
Stopped.
Then began again.
Michael whispered, “That's not possible.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You've said that twice tonight.”
“Because it isn't.”
Marcus approached the briefcase carefully.
“Whose name?”
Vincent pointed.
Marcus looked through the opening.
The screen displayed:
GABRIEL CARUSO.
Vincent's older brother.
Dead at twenty-nine.
Vincent had been twenty-three when Gabriel's car went through a highway barrier on a rainy night.
There had been an investigation.
Mechanical failure.
A tragedy.
Their father had never recovered from it.
Vincent had inherited responsibilities he had never expected to carry.
And Michael Russo had been standing beside him at Gabriel's funeral.
Now Gabriel's name was calling a phone inside a briefcase designed to look like Michael's.
“Answer it,” Anthony said.
Marcus looked at Vincent.
Vincent nodded.
Marcus put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then static.
Then a distorted recording.
“Vincent.”
Vincent's hands curled.
He knew the voice.
Not because it sounded exactly like Gabriel.
It didn't.
It was older somehow, roughened by the recording.
But the cadence—
“Vincent, if you're hearing this, someone finally found what I couldn't.”
Michael whispered, “Jesus.”
The recording continued.
“Don't trust the obvious answer.”
Then it ended.
The room erupted.
Anthony demanded to know what was happening.
Samuel insisted they call law enforcement.
David wanted the building evacuated.
Michael said nothing.
Vincent remained still.
Don't trust the obvious answer.
The obvious answer was Michael.
His initials.
His duplicate briefcase.
His presence that morning.
Someone was pointing every arrow at him.
Which meant Gabriel's message was telling Vincent to look somewhere else.
“Everyone sits,” Vincent said.
Nobody argued.
Marcus inspected the phone.
“No SIM information visible. We'll need the technical team.”
“Give it to them.”
Vincent turned toward Elena.
She and Noah had not left.
“Upstairs. Now.”
This time Elena nodded.
But Noah resisted.
“My bunny.”
It remained near the table.
Elena reached for it.
“No,” Marcus said sharply.
Everyone looked at him.
He crouched.
A thin white thread protruded from the rabbit's back seam.
Elena went pale.
“What is that?”
Marcus examined it.
“Probably nothing.”
But his voice said otherwise.
Noah began crying.
“My bunny.”
Vincent knelt beside him.
“We're going to let Marcus look after him for a little while.”
“No.”
“I know.”
“My daddy gave him to me.”
Vincent glanced at Elena.
Her expression closed.
Vincent didn't ask.
Not yet.
“Then Marcus will be extra careful.”
Noah wiped his eyes.
“Promise?”
Marcus surprised everyone.
“I promise.”
Noah reluctantly nodded.
Elena led him away with another security officer.
When the door closed, Vincent looked at Marcus.
“Check everything.”
The rabbit.
The duplicate briefcase.
The phone.
The device.
The hallway footage.
Access logs.
Elevator records.
Every person who had entered the building during the previous forty-eight hours.
Marcus nodded.
Vincent then looked around the table.
“Phones.”
Anthony frowned.
“Excuse me?”
“Put them on the table.”
One by one, they complied.
Michael was last.
Vincent noticed.
“You think it's me,” Michael said.
“I think somebody wants me to think it's you.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It's the only one I have.”
Michael leaned closer.
“I buried your brother beside you.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“So did fifty other people.”
“I held your father together while you identified Gabriel.”
“I remember.”
“I gave you twenty-three years.”
“And tonight I'm asking for one more.”
Michael stared at him.
Then sat down.
For the next hour, Marcus's team worked.
The results only made things worse.
The device beneath Vincent's desk was not part of the building.
The duplicate briefcase had no usable fingerprints.
The phone had been purchased anonymously.
The office camera had not malfunctioned.
Someone had deliberately interrupted its feed.
And the access logs showed no unauthorized entry.
“Meaning?” Vincent asked.
Marcus answered reluctantly.
“Whoever entered used valid credentials.”
“Whose?”
Marcus looked toward the table.
“Yours.”
Vincent said nothing.
His credentials had been duplicated.
Or someone had accessed them.
Only three people had ever possessed administrative privileges powerful enough to do that.
Vincent.
Marcus.
And the head of corporate systems, Nathan Cole.
“Where is Cole?”
Marcus called security.
No answer.
He tried Cole's personal number.
Straight to voicemail.
“Find him.”
Two guards left.
Vincent walked to the window again.
Behind him, Michael said, “Gabriel knew something.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“That recording.”
“Yes.”
“He said someone finally found what he couldn't.”
Vincent understood.
The device might not have been the real discovery.
It might have been a signal.
A breadcrumb.
Something designed to start a chain.
“But why now?” Samuel asked.
Vincent looked toward the ceiling.
Then he remembered.
Twenty years.
Not nineteen.
The note said twenty years.
Gabriel had died nineteen years and eight months ago.
Almost twenty.
An anniversary.
Michael seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“His death.”
Vincent nodded.
“Someone has been waiting.”
“For what?”
Vincent didn't know.
Marcus returned with another report.
“We found something on the device.”
“What?”
“A storage module.”
“What's on it?”
“Encrypted files. Technical team is working on them.”
“And the rabbit?”
Marcus paused.
Vincent's stomach tightened.
“What?”
“The thread wasn't electronic.”
“Then what was it?”
Marcus held up a tiny plastic evidence sleeve.
Inside was a narrow strip of old photographic film.
Vincent stared.
“It had been sewn into the rabbit.”
“Recently?”
“No.”
“How long?”
“Impossible to say exactly, but the stitching isn't new.”
Vincent looked toward the private elevator.
Noah had said his father gave him the rabbit.
“Get Elena.”
Ten minutes later, she returned alone.
Noah was asleep upstairs.
Vincent placed the evidence sleeve on the table.
Elena stopped walking.
She recognized it.
“What is this?” Vincent asked.
“I don't know.”
“Don't lie.”
Her eyes flashed.
“I'm not.”
“Who gave Noah the rabbit?”
Elena hesitated.
“His father.”
“Name.”
“Daniel Brooks.”
“Where is he?”
She looked down.
“He died.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Vincent's expression changed.
“How?”
“Car accident.”
The room went quiet.
Michael stood.
Vincent asked, “What did Daniel do?”
“He was an accountant.”
“For whom?”
Elena's eyes filled.
“I don't know why that matters.”
“Because something was sewn inside a toy he gave your son, and tonight your son found something hidden beneath my desk.”
Elena shook her head.
“Daniel didn't know you.”
Vincent waited.
She looked toward the photograph strip.
“At least I didn't think he did.”
Marcus asked, “Can we develop this?”
“Yes.”
They did.
Twenty minutes later, Marcus returned holding a printed enlargement.
He placed it on Vincent's desk.
The photograph was old.
Grainy.
Taken at night.
Three men stood beside a warehouse.
The first was Gabriel Caruso.
The second was a younger Michael Russo.
And the third—
Elena covered her mouth.
“Daniel.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You said he didn't know us.”
“I didn't know.”
Michael picked up the photograph.
His face went pale.
“I remember this night.”
Vincent turned sharply.
“Then start talking.”
Michael stared at Gabriel's image.
“Your brother called me. Said he'd found irregularities in one of the old companies.”
“What irregularities?”
“Money disappearing. Contracts being redirected. Somebody using Caruso accounts.”
“And Daniel?”
“I didn't know his name. Gabriel said he was helping him.”
Elena sat down.
Her legs seemed unable to hold her.
“My husband?”
Michael nodded.
“He was scared.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“What happened after this picture?”
Michael swallowed.
“Gabriel told me he was going to confront someone.”
“Who?”
“He never said.”
“And three days later he died.”
“Yes.”
Vincent's voice became colder.
“You never told me this.”
Michael looked ashamed.
“Gabriel made me promise.”
“He died.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe his death was an accident.”
“I believed it was.”
Vincent slammed his palm against the table.
For the first time, everyone jumped.
“YOU BELIEVED?”
Michael didn't move.
“I was twenty-four years old, Vincent. Your family was collapsing. Your father could barely speak. You were suddenly responsible for everything. Gabriel had told me not to involve you unless he could prove it.”
“And when he died?”
“I searched.”
“For what?”
“Whatever he'd found.”
Michael looked toward the photograph.
“I never found it.”
Elena began crying silently.
“My husband never told me.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Daniel may have been protecting you.”
“From what?”
Nobody answered.
Marcus's phone buzzed.
He checked the message.
“The encrypted storage opened.”
Vincent immediately turned.
“What did you find?”
“Financial records.”
“How old?”
“Twenty years.”
Michael closed his eyes.
Marcus continued.
“Payments. Shell companies. Property transfers. And a list of names.”
“Whose?”
“People who worked with Gabriel.”
Vincent took the tablet.
Most names meant nothing.
Then he found Daniel Brooks.
Beside it:
CONFIDENTIAL ACCOUNTING CONSULTANT.
Elena stared.
“My husband was twenty-two.”
“He was helping Gabriel,” Michael said.
Vincent scrolled.
Another name.
Michael Russo.
Another.
Nathan Cole.
Another.
A name Vincent hadn't seen since childhood.
Then the final entry.
A woman.
Rebecca Caruso.
Vincent's mother.
He stopped.
“My mother died when I was sixteen.”
Marcus looked over his shoulder.
“Then why is there a payment recorded in her name four years after her death?”
Vincent couldn't answer.
A security officer suddenly appeared at the doorway.
“Mr. Caruso.”
“What?”
“We found Nathan Cole.”
Marcus stood.
“Where?”
“In the archive room.”
“Bring him.”
The officer didn't move.
“Sir…”
Vincent's patience vanished.
“What?”
“He isn't alone.”
“Who is with him?”
The officer swallowed.
“A woman.”
Vincent stared at him.
“Name.”
“She gave us one.”
The officer hesitated.
Vincent stepped forward.
“What name?”
“Rebecca Caruso.”
May you like
The lights in the office went out.
And from the dark hallway, a woman whispered Vincent's name.
