Chapter 2 - The Account That Didn't Exist
Sienna moved beside the door.
It opened slowly.
Peter Sloan stepped inside.
He nearly jumped when he saw her.
"Colonel."
"Close it."
He did.
"Did anyone see you?"
"I don't think so."
"That's not an answer."
"No."
Sienna studied him.
"What are you afraid of?"
Peter looked toward Jonathan's desk.
"Your father."
"My father is dead."
"That's why I'm afraid."
Sienna waited.
Peter rubbed both hands over his face.
"The agreement wasn't drafted after he died."
"When?"
"Six weeks ago."
"By whom?"
"I don't know."
"Try again."
"I mean it. The draft appeared in our internal system under Richard's authorization."
"Did Richard write it?"
"He says he didn't."
"And you believed him?"
Peter hesitated.
"At first."
Sienna removed the brass key.
Peter stared.
"Where did you get that?"
"My father."
His expression confirmed he recognized it.
"What does it open?"
"I don't know."
"You've seen it."
"Not that key. The symbol."
Sienna examined the head of the key.
A tiny falcon had been engraved into the metal.
Peter walked toward the bookshelf.
"Your father had a private holding company called Falcon Ridge."
"Not in the probate inventory."
"Exactly."
Sienna's eyes sharpened.
"Value?"
"Nobody knows."
"Assets?"
"Nobody knows."
"Then how do you know it exists?"
Peter reached into his jacket.
He produced a folded photocopy.
"Because three months ago your father asked me to notarize this."
It was a corporate resolution.
Falcon Ridge Holdings LLC.
Sienna read the document.
The company had been formed seventeen years earlier.
Its sole manager was Jonathan Sterling.
The beneficiary field had been redacted.
"Why wasn't this disclosed?"
"I asked Richard the same question after your father died."
"And?"
"He told me never to mention Falcon Ridge again."
Sienna folded the document.
"I'm keeping this."
Peter nodded.
"What is 17-4-9?"
His eyes widened.
"Where did you hear that?"
"Answer."
Peter backed toward the desk.
"Your father used those numbers."
"For what?"
"I don't know. He asked me once whether I'd ever seen them in a client file."
"When?"
"Two months ago."
Sienna felt the puzzle tightening.
"Did you?"
"No."
"Did anyone else?"
"I don't know."
Sienna hated that answer.
Peter lowered his voice.
"Colonel, your father knew something was happening."
"What?"
"He started requesting old ledgers. Vendor records. Wire transfers. He stopped using the firm's secure portal."
"Why?"
"He said it wasn't secure."
Sienna looked at him.
"A sixty-seven-year-old industrialist discovered your law firm's encrypted portal wasn't secure?"
"He didn't mean hackers."
Peter swallowed.
"He meant someone inside."
The study suddenly felt smaller.
"Who had access?"
"Partners. Senior administrators. Your father. Your mother."
Sienna's eyes lifted.
"Margaret had access?"
"Through Sterling Strategic Holdings."
Sienna walked toward the window.
She needed facts, not suspicion.
"What was the first account?"
Peter didn't answer.
She turned.
"The note said someone found the first account."
Peter stared.
"What note?"
"Answer my question."
"I don't know."
Sienna stepped closer.
"You're lying."
His face tightened.
"Your father discovered payments."
"What payments?"
"Monthly transfers."
"To whom?"
"An entity called Northstar Advisory."
"How much?"
"Two hundred fifty thousand dollars."
"Every month?"
"For eleven years."
Sienna calculated automatically.
Thirty-three million dollars.
"Services?"
"None that we could verify."
"And Margaret?"
"I don't know what she knew."
Sienna didn't believe him.
But before she could press harder, Peter's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His face drained.
"What?"
He showed her.
UNKNOWN NUMBER:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE STUDY ALONE.
Sienna took the phone.
"When did you tell someone you were here?"
"I didn't."
"Location sharing?"
"Off."
"Family tracking?"
"No."
Sienna looked toward the ceiling.
No obvious camera.
That meant nothing.
She handed the phone back.
"Leave through the east corridor."
"What about you?"
"I'm going to find out what this key opens."
"Colonel, whoever sent that knows—"
"I know."
Peter left.
Sienna remained in the study for another fifteen minutes.
She searched without disturbing anything unnecessarily.
Her father had been meticulous.
One missing ledger.
Two empty file slots.
A disconnected network cable.
And beneath the desk, a tiny adhesive residue where something rectangular had recently been removed.
A drive.
Maybe a recorder.
Someone had cleaned the room.
But not perfectly.
Nobody ever did.
Sienna found her father's handwritten calendar.
April 17.
9:00 p.m.
Only three characters were written beside the time.
FRH.
17-4-9.
Seventeenth day.
Fourth month.
Nine o'clock.
The pen wasn't a cipher.
It was an appointment.
April 17 at nine.
Three weeks before Jonathan's death.
FRH.
Falcon Ridge Holdings?
Sienna photographed the page.
Her phone rang.
Margaret.
She let it ring twice before answering.
"Where are you?"
"Walking."
"Don't play games."
"You locked me in a room with five lawyers."
"I did not lock you in."
"The door was locked."
Silence.
Sienna stopped.
"You didn't know?"
Margaret recovered quickly.
"Of course I knew."
But the hesitation had been real.
Interesting.
"Who locked it?"
"I told Richard we needed privacy."
"That's not what I asked."
"Come downstairs."
"Why?"
"We need to talk."
"We've been doing that badly all morning."
"Sienna."
Something in Margaret's voice changed.
Fear.
"Please."
Sienna returned to the conference room.
Only Margaret remained.
The contracts were gone.
The attorneys had left.
Margaret stood by the window holding a glass of water.
"You embarrassed me."
Sienna closed the door.
"Was that why you called me?"
"No."
Margaret turned.
For the first time that morning, she looked older than sixty-two.
"Your father was frightened before he died."
Sienna said nothing.
"He stopped sleeping."
"Why?"
"He thought someone was stealing from the company."
"Northstar Advisory?"
The glass slipped slightly in Margaret's hand.
There it was.
"You know the name."
"Where did you hear it?"
"Answer me."
Margaret placed the glass down.
"Jonathan became obsessed."
"Thirty-three million dollars is worth being obsessed over."
Margaret stared at her.
"So you found Peter."
Sienna didn't respond.
Margaret walked toward the table.
"Northstar was legitimate."
"What did it do?"
"Consulting."
"What kind?"
"I don't know."
"Who owned it?"
"I don't know."
"Who authorized the transfers?"
Margaret stopped.
Sienna watched her thumb press against her index finger.
The lie was coming.
"Your father."
Sienna's voice became almost gentle.
"Don't."
Margaret looked at her.
"Don't what?"
"Lie to me about Dad four days after I buried him."
The words broke something.
Margaret's face crumpled for half a second.
Then she regained control.
"You think I killed him?"
Sienna hadn't said that.
"No."
"But you're wondering."
"I'm wondering why you tried to strip me of access to the estate before the funeral flowers were dead."
Margaret turned away.
"Because your father told me to."
"Show me."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"The instructions disappeared."
Sienna went still.
"What instructions?"
"A letter."
"When?"
"Two days before he died."
"What did it say?"
Margaret's voice dropped.
"If anything happens to me, Sienna cannot control Falcon Ridge."
Sienna felt cold.
Her mother continued.
"He underlined cannot."
"Where is the letter?"
"Gone."
"Who saw it?"
"Richard."
"Anyone else?"
"No."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I knew what you'd think."
"No. You knew I'd ask questions."
Margaret's eyes filled.
"Your father wasn't protecting you from me."
"Then from whom?"
Margaret looked toward the closed door.
"I don't know."
Sienna believed her.
That frightened her more than the lies.
That evening, she drove alone to Falcon Ridge.
She had found the address through an archived corporate filing.
It wasn't an office.
It was an abandoned private airfield forty miles outside the city.
Hangar 17 stood at the far end.
Sienna parked without headlights.
The brass key fit the side entrance.
Inside, darkness swallowed the building.
She used a small flashlight.
Dust covered the floor.
An old aircraft sat beneath a canvas sheet.
At the back was an office.
Locked.
The brass key worked again.
Inside, Sienna found a desk, a disconnected computer, and a steel safe.
The safe keypad waited.
She entered 170409.
Red light.
Wrong.
Then she remembered the calendar.
April 17.
9 p.m.
Green.
The safe opened.
Inside was a single hard drive.
And a photograph.
Sienna picked it up.
Her father stood beside Margaret.
Richard Hale stood beside them.
And beside Richard was a fourth person whose face made Sienna's breath stop.
May you like
She knew him.
He was supposed to have died twelve years ago.
