Chapter 2 - The Woman Behind the Door
Maeve opened the suite door.
Tessa Morgan stood barefoot in the hallway.
Her champagne-colored bridesmaid dress was hidden beneath a long gray coat, but Maeve recognized the pearl earrings they had chosen together three months earlier.
Tessa’s mascara had run down both cheeks.
She was holding a small overnight bag.
And she looked terrified.
Not guilty.
Terrified.
“Come in,” Maeve said.
Brandon immediately protested.
“No.”
Maeve turned.
“You no longer get a vote.”
Tessa saw Luca.
Her eyes widened.
Then she saw Brandon.
She stopped breathing.
“You told me he wouldn’t be here.”
Maeve looked between them.
“Who told you?”
Tessa stared at the carpet.
“Brandon.”
The betrayal sharpened.
Maeve stepped aside.
“Inside.”
Tessa entered.
Luca’s men quietly moved back into the corridor and closed the door.
For a few seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Maeve held up the ultrasound.
“Is this yours?”
Tessa nodded.
“Yes.”
“Is Brandon the father?”
Tessa began crying.
Brandon moved toward her.
“Tessa, think before you answer.”
Maeve’s voice turned cold.
“Don’t threaten her.”
“I’m not threatening anyone.”
Tessa shook her head.
“He is.”
Maeve stared.
“What?”
“Not like that.” Tessa wiped her face. “Not physically. But he’s been threatening my job. My apartment. Everything.”
Brandon laughed.
“That is absurd.”
Tessa faced him.
“You told me Maeve would fire me from Callahan Foundation if she found out.”
Maeve frowned.
“I would never—”
“I know that now.”
Tessa’s shoulders shook.
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
Maeve closed her eyes for one painful second.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, she asked the only question that mattered.
“When did it start?”
Tessa looked ashamed.
“Five months ago.”
Maeve had been engaged for eleven months.
Five months ago, she and Brandon had spent two weeks apart while he attended a conference in New York.
Tessa had supposedly been there on Foundation business.
Maeve understood.
“New York.”
Tessa nodded.
“I was stupid.”
Brandon said, “We both made choices.”
Tessa turned on him.
“You told me you and Maeve were practically over.”
Maeve looked at Brandon.
He said nothing.
Tessa continued.
“You said the wedding was mostly for the families and the company. You said she knew.”
Maeve’s laugh was empty.
“Apparently I was the only person who didn’t.”
“I ended it,” Tessa said quickly. “When I realized you weren’t leaving her.”
“When did you realize?”
“The week I found out I was pregnant.”
Maeve looked at the ultrasound.
“Why was this in his tuxedo?”
Tessa’s expression changed.
“I gave it to him tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“At nine.”
Brandon snapped, “Tessa.”
She ignored him.
“I told him I was going to tell you before the ceremony.”
Maeve’s chest tightened.
“He asked you not to.”
“He begged me.”
Brandon scoffed.
“That’s not what happened.”
Tessa looked at Maeve.
“He said if you knew before the marital trust was signed, everything would collapse.”
Silence.
Luca’s gaze settled on Brandon.
Maeve felt sick.
“So even the affair was connected to the company?”
“No,” Tessa said. “Not at first.”
“Not at first?”
Tessa swallowed.
“Brandon started asking questions about your voting shares. About what happened if you married. About whether you had ever changed the executor on your father’s trust.”
Maeve remembered conversations she had once thought harmless.
Brandon asking what she would do if she sold.
Brandon asking who could vote her shares if she became ill.
Brandon suggesting his own attorney review the Callahan family trust.
Every memory changed shape.
“Why did you answer him?”
“I thought he loved you.”
Maeve stared at her.
That answer hurt because Maeve had thought the same thing.
Luca moved toward the window.
He seemed to be giving them privacy while hearing every word.
Maeve turned to him.
“You said seventeen million dollars moved.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Through three holding companies.”
“Owned by Brandon?”
“Two by associates. One by a shell corporation.”
“What’s the shell called?”
Luca’s eyes moved to Brandon.
“Northlake Meridian.”
Tessa gasped.
Maeve looked at her.
“You know it?”
Tessa went pale.
“That’s the company Brandon told me he was putting the baby’s trust fund into.”
Maeve closed her eyes.
Of course.
Brandon had built one lie on top of another.
A future for his unborn child funded with money stolen from Maeve’s inheritance.
Brandon stepped forward.
“You are twisting everything.”
Luca finally faced him.
“Then untwist it.”
Brandon’s mouth tightened.
Luca continued.
“Tell Maeve why Northlake Meridian received $4.2 million three days after you convinced her board to approve the South Loop acquisition.”
Maeve’s head snapped toward Brandon.
“That deal failed.”
“Yes,” Luca said. “For Callahan.”
He handed her another page.
“The seller was controlled by Northlake.”
Maeve read.
Her hands went numb.
Callahan Architectural Group had paid millions for a property that later became legally unusable due to unresolved environmental restrictions.
Brandon had blamed incompetence by outside counsel.
But Northlake had profited.
Maeve whispered, “You sold my company a poisoned building.”
Brandon’s expression hardened.
“I increased liquidity.”
“You stole.”
“I repositioned assets.”
“You stole from my father.”
“Your father is dead.”
The words landed like a slap.
Even Brandon appeared to realize he had gone too far.
Maeve stared at him.
“My father trusted me to protect that company.”
“And you weren’t protecting it.”
His mask finally slipped.
“You left everything to old men who still think Chicago runs on handshakes and lunch clubs. I made the company modern.”
“You robbed it.”
“I made decisions.”
“For yourself.”
“For us.”
Maeve shook her head.
“There is no us.”
Brandon looked at Luca.
“This is what he wants.”
Maeve’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“He wants you angry enough to walk straight into his hands.”
Luca remained silent.
Brandon laughed.
“You think Moretti is some concerned citizen?”
Maeve turned.
“Why are you involved?”
Luca met her gaze.
“Because your father asked me to be.”
The room went still.
“My father has been dead for two years.”
“Yes.”
“You said you learned about Brandon six weeks ago.”
“I learned about the theft six weeks ago.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Luca exhaled slowly.
“Patrick Callahan contacted me three days before he died.”
Maeve’s throat tightened.
“Why?”
“He believed someone inside Callahan Group was moving money.”
“Was it Brandon?”
“Brandon wasn’t on the board yet.”
Maeve frowned.
That made no sense.
“Then who?”
Luca looked toward the black envelope.
“Your father never found out.”
“Because he died.”
“Yes.”
Maeve stepped closer.
“In an accident.”
Luca said nothing.
“Was it an accident?”
Tessa covered her mouth.
Brandon looked almost pleased.
Luca’s silence became unbearable.
Maeve whispered, “Answer me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You just implied—”
“I said I don’t know.”
Luca’s voice remained controlled, but something darker moved behind his eyes.
“Your father called me because he didn’t trust the police with what he had found. He wanted me to verify several accounts.”
“Why you?”
“Our families had history.”
“What history?”
“That conversation belongs somewhere safer.”
Maeve almost shouted.
“No more somewhere safer. No more later. Everybody in this room knows pieces of my life except me.”
Luca looked at her for a long moment.
Then he reached into his coat again.
This time he removed an old silver key.
He placed it on the dresser beside Maeve’s engagement ring.
Stamped into the metal were two letters.
P.C.
Patrick Callahan.
Maeve stopped breathing.
“That was my father’s.”
“Yes.”
“I recognize it.”
“I know.”
“How do you have it?”
“He gave it to me.”
She picked it up.
The metal was scratched near the edge.
Her father had carried the same key ring for years.
Maeve remembered playing with it as a child while sitting in his office.
“What does it open?”
“A private deposit box.”
“Where?”
“First Chicago Trust.”
Maeve looked at Luca.
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know.”
Brandon abruptly moved toward the door.
Luca blocked his path.
“Sit down.”
“You can’t hold me here.”
“You’re right.”
Luca stepped aside.
“You’re free to leave.”
Brandon hesitated.
Luca smiled faintly.
“But there are two federal investigators in the lobby who would love to ask you about Northlake Meridian.”
Brandon stopped.
Maeve stared.
“You called federal investigators?”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
A new voice came from the doorway.
“I did.”
Maeve turned.
A woman in a navy pantsuit stood there.
Late fifties.
Silver-blonde hair.
A leather briefcase in one hand.
Maeve knew her.
Evelyn Mercer.
Her father’s former chief financial officer.
The woman who had resigned six weeks after his death and disappeared from Chicago.
Maeve had not seen her in nearly two years.
Evelyn looked at Patrick Callahan’s key in Maeve’s hand.
Then at Brandon.
“I should have come back sooner.”
Maeve’s knees nearly weakened.
“Evelyn?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Evelyn entered and closed the door.
“For leaving you alone with the wrong people.”
Brandon’s face had become unnaturally still.
Luca noticed.
So did Maeve.
Evelyn set her briefcase on the table.
“I have copies of the transfers.”
Maeve whispered, “You knew?”
“I knew something was wrong before Patrick died.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of Brandon?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“No.”
Brandon seemed almost relieved.
Then Evelyn added, “Of the person Brandon works for.”
Maeve’s heart stopped.
“Works for?”
Evelyn opened her briefcase.
Inside were dozens of files.
She removed one photograph.
Placed it on the table.
Maeve stepped closer.
It had been taken outside Callahan headquarters.
Brandon stood beside an older man.
The photograph was grainy.
But the other face was recognizable.
Maeve knew him.
Everyone in her family knew him.
Her uncle.
Thomas Callahan.
Her father’s younger brother.
The man scheduled to walk Maeve down the aisle in eight hours.
Maeve whispered, “Uncle Tommy?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Brandon didn’t design this scheme.”
Maeve stared at the photograph.
Tessa began to cry again.
Luca’s expression hardened.
And Brandon said softly, “You should not have brought that here.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“I brought more than a photograph.”
Her phone buzzed.
She checked the screen.
All color left her face.
“What?” Luca asked.
Evelyn turned the phone toward him.
A security-camera image filled the display.
Someone had entered First Chicago Trust.
At 12:16 a.m.
Someone wearing a dark overcoat.
Maeve leaned closer.
The man turned just enough for the camera to catch his face.
Thomas Callahan.
Her uncle.
And in his hand was another key.
Maeve looked down at the one her father had given Luca.
Then back at the image.
Evelyn whispered, “He’s going for the deposit box.”
Luca was already moving.
Maeve grabbed his arm.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“It’s my father’s box.”
“Maeve—”
“I’m coming.”
Luca stared at her.
Then nodded once.
They reached the hallway.
The elevator doors opened.
A hotel employee stood inside holding a white wedding garment bag.
He looked at Maeve.
“Ms. Callahan?”
“Yes?”
“This was just delivered for you.”
Maeve frowned.
“My dress is already in the room.”
“I know.”
The employee held out the bag.
“There’s a note.”
Maeve opened it.
Three words had been written in her uncle’s handwriting.
DON’T TRUST MORETTI.
Below them was an address.
And a time.
1:00 A.M.
Maeve looked at Luca.
The elevator chimed.
The doors began closing.
Then Maeve noticed something inside the garment bag.
May you like
Not another wedding dress.
Her father’s bloodstained overcoat.
