Chapter 1 - The Camera Above the Landing
Garrett kicked my sandwich wrapper and hissed, "Get out of here."
Dominic Vance stepped onto the landing and picked up a financial statement Garrett had dropped.
One number had been circled twice.
$515,000.
That was when I realized Garrett wasn't afraid of Dominic.
He was afraid of me.
My name is Naomi Hayes.
I was twenty-eight years old, a single mother, an accounting specialist, and apparently too fat to eat a turkey sandwich where important people might see me.
At least according to Garrett Pendleton.
Twenty minutes earlier, I had been sitting at my desk on the fourteenth floor of Vanguard Logistics, correcting a vendor report that technically belonged to a senior analyst earning twenty-three thousand dollars more than I did.
Garrett had stopped beside me.
His eyes went to my lunch.
Then my stomach.
"Take your lunch to the stairwell, Naomi. Clients don't need to watch that."
Three coworkers heard him.
Nobody defended me.
I understood why.
Garrett controlled promotions, annual reviews, bonuses, and enough of the department's daily misery to make courage expensive.
I had six months left before an important portion of my benefits package vested.
More importantly, I had Lily.
My seven-year-old daughter could turn an ordinary Tuesday into the best day of my life simply by running through our apartment wearing mismatched socks and announcing that she'd invented a new dance.
She also had asthma.
Specialists cost money.
Medication cost money.
New York charged money for practically breathing the air between buildings.
So I had learned to calculate humiliation the same way I calculated invoices.
Could I afford to quit?
No.
Could I afford to get fired?
Absolutely not.
Therefore, I had taken my lunch downstairs.
Garrett probably thought that meant he'd won.
Now he was standing five feet away from me while Dominic Vance watched him with an expression I couldn't read.
Dominic was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed entirely in black. Dark hair swept back from his forehead. A neatly trimmed beard sharpened a face that already looked carved rather than grown. Ink disappeared beneath his collar and covered part of one hand.
I'd heard plenty of stories about him.
Most contradicted one another.
Some people called him ruthless.
Others called him brilliant.
What I knew for certain was less dramatic.
He controlled Vance Maritime and several major logistics and security companies, and Vanguard needed his freight contracts far more than he needed us.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't have to.
He looked at Garrett.
"You told her to eat here?"
Garrett forced a laugh.
"Employee discipline issue."
"What issue?"
Silence.
Garrett glanced at me.
Specifically, at my body.
Dominic caught it.
Something in his face cooled.
"She's not client-facing material," Garrett finally said.
I stared at him.
I'd heard variations before.
Executive presence.
Professional silhouette.
Brand alignment.
Garrett had an entire dictionary for saying the same ugly thing without putting it in an email.
Dominic looked at my ID badge.
"Naomi Hayes?"
"Yes."
"What do you do?"
"Vendor reconciliation."
"She's basically a clerk," Garrett interrupted.
"Accounting specialist," I corrected.
Garrett's jaw tightened.
Dominic opened the leather portfolio beneath his arm.
"Then maybe you can explain something."
He handed me several pages.
I almost refused.
Almost.
Then I saw the first vendor name.
Apex Holdings LLC.
My professional instincts overruled every warning bell in my head.
I scanned the entries.
$450,000.
$280,000.
$515,000.
Quarterly payments.
Operational consulting.
Regional freight support.
The descriptions looked legitimate if you didn't know Vanguard's operations.
I did.
"Apex shouldn't be here."
Dominic's eyes sharpened.
"Why?"
"We don't outsource this function."
Garrett stepped forward.
"Naomi doesn't have access to executive contracting information."
"I don't need executive access. Regional routing is internal."
I turned another page.
Then stopped.
The vendor identification number looked familiar.
Numbers did that to me.
People forgot faces.
I remembered digits.
A sequence could sit somewhere in my brain for six months and come back the moment I saw it again.
72841-09.
I had seen 72841 before.
Where?
I closed my eyes for half a second.
Westchester.
Property reimbursement.
Garrett.
I opened them.
"This vendor ID shares a tax suffix with an expense entity connected to Garrett."
Garrett laughed.
Too fast.
"That's ridiculous."
"Maybe."
I examined the next page.
Then my stomach tightened.
There was my name.
N. HAYES.
Digital approval.
I checked the amount.
$280,000.
"That's impossible."
Dominic leaned slightly closer.
"Why?"
"My authorization limit is seventy-five thousand."
Garrett spoke immediately.
"You approved an exception."
"No."
"Yes, you did."
"I would remember approving two hundred eighty thousand dollars."
"You process hundreds of transactions."
"Not above my limit."
Garrett's face hardened.
"You're confused."
That word.
I hated that word.
Confused.
Emotional.
Sensitive.
Words men like Garrett used when facts stopped cooperating.
I looked at the timestamp.
9:47 p.m.
March 18.
I knew exactly where I'd been.
"Lily had an asthma attack that night."
Garrett blinked.
"What?"
"My daughter. I left the office at 4:12 p.m. I was at Mount Sinai before six."
Dominic looked at Garrett.
Garrett shrugged.
"Remote access."
"I didn't bring my company laptop."
"You could've—"
"My VPN token was in my desk."
That shut him up.
For one beautiful second, nobody spoke.
Then something chirped overhead.
Tiny.
Electronic.
I looked up.
A black dome camera sat above the landing.
Garrett followed my gaze.
His face changed.
I couldn't help it.
"Interesting."
Garrett recovered quickly.
"Those cameras don't record audio."
Dominic looked up.
"Didn't say they did."
Garrett realized his mistake.
I watched it happen.
His lips parted.
His eyes moved.
He had volunteered information nobody had asked for.
Dominic took the documents from me.
"How long have you worked here?"
"Three and a half years."
"You know the accounts?"
"Better than most people who approve them."
Garrett scoffed.
"That's quite a claim."
I turned toward him.
"You promoted Chase Bennett over me."
"Because he was more qualified."
"He asked me what an accrual was during his second week."
Dominic's mouth almost moved.
Almost.
Garrett pointed toward the fire door.
"Naomi, return to your desk."
I stood.
That took a moment because I'd been sitting on concrete too long.
I was aware of my body as I rose.
Garrett always made me aware of it.
My skirt over my broad hips.
My blouse against my stomach.
My fuller arms.
Every inch he'd trained me to think needed an apology.
But Dominic wasn't looking at me that way.
He was watching Garrett.
I picked up my lunch.
Dominic said, "Leave the wrapper."
Garrett stiffened.
I looked down.
The wrapper he'd kicked lay near his shoe.
Dominic nodded toward it.
"Mr. Pendleton can get it."
Garrett stared at him.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
For once, Garrett obeyed.
He bent down.
Picked up the wrapper.
Handed it to me.
I accepted it without smiling.
"Thank you."
Garrett's face burned.
I headed toward the door.
"Ms. Hayes."
I stopped.
Dominic held out a business card.
No flourish.
No secret message.
Just his name and a number.
"If you remember anything unusual about those accounts, call."
Garrett said, "Any internal accounting concerns go through me."
Dominic didn't look at him.
"Not anymore."
I took the card.
Upstairs, the office had changed without physically changing at all.
Sarah wouldn't meet my eyes.
Kyle suddenly needed to print something.
Chase was leaning against my cubicle.
"Garrett wants your access logs."
"Why?"
"He didn't say."
"Did you give them to him?"
"I don't have them."
I sat down.
My computer was awake.
That was wrong.
I always locked it.
Always.
I touched the mouse.
A system window was open.
REMOTE CREDENTIAL MANAGEMENT.
My heart started beating harder.
Someone had accessed my security profile.
I checked the audit timestamp.
Three minutes earlier.
While I had been downstairs.
I reached for my phone.
Before I could photograph the screen, the window vanished.
Not minimized.
Closed remotely.
Then another message appeared.
ACCESS SESSION TERMINATED.
My screen went black.
"Naomi?"
Sarah was standing now.
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
That was a lie.
I knew enough.
Someone was cleaning.
Fast.
I grabbed a notebook and wrote the timestamp by hand.
2:18 p.m.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One message.
STOP LOOKING AT APEX.
I stared at it.
Another message arrived immediately.
YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER.
My blood went cold.
I stood so quickly my chair rolled backward.
Across the office, Garrett's door was open.
His chair was empty.
Then the elevator chimed.
Garrett stepped out.
He looked directly at me.
And smiled.
My phone buzzed a third time.
This message contained only a photograph.
Lily.
Walking out of her school ten minutes earlier.
May you like
And beneath it were four words:
WE KNOW WHERE SHE IS.
