Chapter 4 - The Man Behind the Door
Adrian reached the door before it opened.
He held it shut.
“Nora, behind the bed.”
She did not argue.
The handle turned again.
Then stopped.
A shadow moved beneath the door.
Adrian stepped aside rather than standing directly in front of it.
Nora’s heart pounded.
“Police are coming,” she whispered.
Adrian nodded.
The shadow disappeared.
Ten seconds later, footsteps ran down the corridor.
Adrian opened the door.
A hospital orderly lay near the elevators.
Unconscious.
His uniform jacket was gone.
Officer Grant arrived with two officers less than three minutes later.
Security footage showed a man wearing the stolen jacket entering the floor.
His face was hidden by a surgical mask and cap.
He left through a stairwell.
Not Preston.
Too tall.
Too broad.
Nora thought of Victor Crane.
The missing security chief.
Grant thought the same thing.
By 7:00 a.m., the hospital assigned Nora police protection.
Adrian left only after Grant assured him officers would remain outside.
Before leaving, he paused.
“I need to ask you something.”
“What?”
“Your mother’s file box.”
Nora nodded.
“Did she ever mention a man named Joseph Moretti?”
Adrian’s father.
Nora searched her memory.
“No.”
“Anything about a ledger?”
She almost said no.
Then something flashed through her mind.
Her mother at the kitchen table.
A blue metal box.
Nora had been twenty.
Her mother had been exhausted.
She had said, Your father kept numbers because numbers don’t forget.
Nora’s breath caught.
“What?”
Adrian asked.
“My mom said something once.”
“What?”
“Numbers don’t forget.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“My father used to say that.”
Nora stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“What does it mean?”
“He kept duplicate books.”
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Against Elias?”
“Against everyone.”
Nora looked toward the window.
The city was waking below.
“If my dad had one…”
Adrian finished quietly.
“Then someone has been looking for it for seven years.”
Nora thought of the apartment break-in.
The stolen blue box.
Preston’s restaurant.
B-17.
Celeste Ward.
Everything seemed to pull toward the same invisible center.
“But why me now?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Maybe they didn’t know you had anything until recently.”
“What changed?”
“You started working at Marrow & Vine.”
Nora froze.
“You think that was planned?”
“I think we need to find out.”
At 9:30 a.m., Celeste Ward woke.
Officer Grant interviewed her.
Nora was not allowed inside.
Neither was Adrian.
But Grant came afterward.
Celeste had been Vance Distribution’s senior accounting manager.
Three months ago, she discovered money moving through shell companies.
Restaurants.
Storage facilities.
Private clubs.
Marrow & Vine was one.
She had tried to resign.
Elias threatened her.
Then Preston gave her a contract.
A nondisclosure agreement.
A confession admitting she had stolen from the company.
Both false.
She refused to sign.
They held her.
Nora remembered the voice.
I signed it.
Please let me go.
“She finally signed,” Grant said. “They planned to move her last night.”
“But I opened the door.”
“Yes.”
Nora swallowed.
“And they hurt me.”
Grant nodded.
“Celeste didn’t see who pushed you.”
“Victor.”
“We think so.”
“What about Preston?”
“Still missing.”
“And Elias?”
Grant’s expression tightened.
“His lawyers say he is traveling.”
“Where?”
“They won’t say.”
Adrian laughed without humor.
“He’s not traveling.”
Grant looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because Elias never leaves during a cleanup.”
Nora stared.
“A cleanup?”
Adrian regretted the word.
She could see it.
“Meaning?”
“When something goes wrong, Elias destroys connections.”
Nora thought of her apartment.
“The records.”
“Yes.”
“The basement.”
“Yes.”
“People?”
Adrian said nothing.
Grant answered.
“That’s why we’re moving Celeste.”
Nora felt suddenly sick.
“What about me?”
“You too.”
“Where?”
“A safe location.”
Adrian shook his head.
Grant turned.
“What?”
“If Victor is involved, police safe houses may not be enough.”
Grant’s eyes narrowed.
“You implying someone in my department is compromised?”
“I’m saying Elias has had thirty years to buy favors.”
“That’s not evidence.”
“No. It’s experience.”
Nora stood slowly.
“I’m going with the police.”
Adrian looked at her.
“I know.”
She had expected an argument.
“You’re not going to tell me what to do?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because everyone else seems to have spent the last day doing that.”
Despite herself, Nora smiled.
Small.
Brief.
But real.
Adrian noticed.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His expression changed.
“Who is it?”
Nora asked.
“My sister.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yes.”
“Answer.”
He did.
“Gia?”
Silence.
Then Adrian went pale.
“Where are you?”
Another pause.
“I’m coming.”
He hung up.
Grant stepped closer.
“What happened?”
“My sister’s house was broken into.”
Nora’s stomach dropped.
“Why?”
Adrian looked directly at her.
“They left something.”
“What?”
He held up his phone.
A photograph.
A blue metal file box.
Nora’s.
It sat on Gia Moretti’s kitchen table.
On top of it was a note.
TRADE THE WAITRESS FOR THE LEDGER.
Nora stopped breathing.
Grant swore.
Adrian’s face turned cold.
Nora stared at the message.
“They think I have the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t.”
Adrian looked at the photograph more closely.
Then he zoomed in.
“What?”
Nora asked.
He pointed at the box.
“The lock.”
“What about it?”
“It’s broken.”
“So?”
“My father used the same boxes.”
Nora shook her head.
“I don’t understand.”
“He never kept the real ledger inside.”
“Then where?”
Adrian looked at Nora’s old employee incident form lying on the table.
B-17.
His eyes narrowed.
“What was your father’s truck number?”
Nora blinked.
“What?”
“His truck. Do you remember?”
She almost laughed at the absurdity.
Then she remembered a photograph from childhood.
Her father beside a red freight truck.
A white number on the cab.
“Seventeen.”
Adrian went still.
Grant whispered, “B-17.”
Nora’s heart began hammering.
“The truck was destroyed in the crash.”
“Maybe,” Adrian said.
Grant checked her phone.
“We can pull salvage records.”
Nora stared at Adrian.
“What are you thinking?”
“That B didn’t mean books.”
“What then?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Bell.”
Officer Grant’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed.
“Yes.”
Pause.
“Where?”
Another pause.
Then she looked at Nora.
“They found your father’s truck.”
Nora’s knees nearly gave out.
Grant continued listening.
“What condition?”
She went silent.
Then lowered the phone.
“It was never destroyed.”
“Where is it?”
Grant swallowed.
“In a private warehouse.”
“Owned by who?”
She turned the screen toward them.
May you like
VANCE DISTRIBUTION GROUP.
And someone had just entered the warehouse.
