Chapter 4 - The Dead Accountant
“Elena was my mother,” Bastion said.
Beatrice stared at the photograph.
“You told me your mother died.”
“She did.”
“When?”
“When I was nine.”
The woman in the picture stood beside Alexander Mercer and Thomas Reed.
The date stamp was only seven years old.
Impossible.
Unless someone had lied.
Bastion took the photograph.
His hands remained steady.
His eyes didn't.
“My mother died in a house fire.”
“Was a body identified?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
He looked at her.
“My father.”
Beatrice didn't need to say it.
Another identification controlled by a Mercer.
Another supposedly dead person.
Thomas Reed.
Elena Mercer.
Maybe death certificates were simply another kind of ledger in this family.
Daniel survived the shooting but remained unconscious.
The sniper escaped.
Back upstairs, Beatrice reconstructed the trust.
Alexander Mercer had created it twelve years ago.
The initial amount was one dollar.
Over time, money entered from twenty-three shell corporations.
Not forty million.
Sixty-three million.
Twenty-three million had already moved elsewhere.
“Where?”
Bastion asked.
“I'm tracing it.”
Hours passed.
At 3:14 a.m., Beatrice found the destination.
Payments to private investigators.
Safe houses.
Medical clinics.
Identity services.
“This isn't a war chest,” she said.
“What is it?”
“Protection.”
“For whom?”
She opened the beneficiary record.
Encrypted.
Again.
But Thomas Reed had left a partial key.
She combined it with the number scratched onto the drive.
The encryption broke.
One name appeared.
ELENA MERCER.
Bastion stared.
Beatrice didn't touch him.
Something told her he would hate comfort given out of pity.
“My mother is dead.”
“The financial system disagrees.”
He walked to the window.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Beatrice said quietly, “Maybe your father hid her.”
“Why?”
“We find her and ask.”
His laugh contained no humor.
“You make impossible things sound administrative.”
“Occupational hazard.”
They traced the most recent payment.
A private clinic in Vermont.
Patient name concealed.
Bastion wanted to leave immediately.
Beatrice stopped him.
“If somebody built this trail, they expect you to follow it.”
“Good.”
“That wasn't encouragement.”
He looked at her.
“My mother may be alive.”
“And someone just shot Daniel for telling us.”
Silence.
“Then you stay here.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Can we retire that argument?”
“No.”
“Excellent. I'll ignore it faster.”
They left before sunrise.
Halfway north, Beatrice discovered another transaction.
Two million dollars had been moved that morning.
Authorized by Bastion's own credentials.
He was sitting beside her.
“Someone has your authentication token.”
“Impossible.”
She looked at his hand.
“Where's your ring?”
Bastion froze.
He wore a signet ring containing an embedded security chip.
It was gone.
“When did you last have it?”
“The garage.”
Beatrice remembered Bastion pulling her behind the car.
Someone had bumped into them afterward.
Adrian.
His security chief.
She didn't accuse him.
Not yet.
At the Vermont clinic, they found an empty room.
The patient had left thirty minutes earlier.
On the bed was a handwritten note.
Bastion unfolded it.
My son,
If Beatrice Abbott is standing beside you, Thomas succeeded.
Trust her.
Trust no one who came with you.
Bastion slowly looked toward the hallway.
Four of his guards waited outside.
Including Adrian Cole.
Beatrice read the final line.
And whatever you do, do not let Adrian open the blue file.
A sound came from the corridor.
Bastion opened the door.
May you like
Adrian was gone.
So was the blue file.
