Chapter 2 - Someone Had Been Watching
Clara stared at Victor’s phone.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Adrian said, “Bring the envelope here. Touch nothing else.”
The call ended.
Clara’s hands had gone cold.
“That photograph could be anything.”
Adrian watched her.
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
“Good.”
He picked up his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Victor.”
“Already arranging it.”
Within minutes, two black SUVs were waiting beneath the covered entrance behind the mansion.
Clara followed Adrian through a private corridor she had never seen before.
The marble floors gave way to reinforced doors, surveillance monitors, and men wearing earpieces.
The glamorous world upstairs vanished.
This was the machinery underneath it.
Adrian stopped at a security room.
“Show me her building.”
One guard looked uncertain.
“We don’t monitor employees’ homes.”
“I know.”
Adrian turned toward Clara.
“Address?”
She gave it.
The guard pulled public street cameras and traffic feeds.
Clara folded her arms.
“You can do that?”
Victor answered without looking at her.
“You’d be surprised what people leave unsecured.”
The nearest camera showed the street outside Clara’s apartment.
At 7:12 that morning, Clara emerged carrying coffee and her handbag.
Thirty seconds later, a gray sedan rolled through the frame.
Nothing unusual.
Victor rewound.
Played it again.
Adrian leaned closer.
“Plate.”
The image was blurry.
Victor enlarged it.
No plate.
Clara frowned.
“That car was there yesterday.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You noticed?”
“It was parked near the hydrant when I left for work.”
“Day before?”
She thought.
“I don’t know.”
Victor searched earlier footage.
The sedan appeared Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
Always in a slightly different position.
Always within sight of Clara’s entrance.
Victor said, “She’s been watched for at least four days.”
Clara felt the floor tilt beneath her.
Four days.
She had found the discrepancy only that afternoon.
Which meant someone had been watching her before she knew anything.
Adrian understood the implication immediately.
“This isn’t because of tonight.”
Victor nodded.
Clara said, “Then why me?”
No one had an answer.
Twenty-five minutes later, Lang’s envelope arrived.
Victor wore gloves when he opened it.
Inside was the photograph.
Clara recognized herself instantly.
Morning.
Coffee.
Green scarf.
Hair pulled into a loose bun.
She had been completely unaware of the camera.
On the back, in block letters, someone had written:
SHE SEES MORE THAN SHE SHOULD.
Clara stared.
Adrian’s jaw flexed.
“Anything else?”
Victor removed a small slip of paper.
It contained four numbers.
Clara frowned.
“April seventeenth?”
Victor said, “Could be.”
Adrian looked at her.
Her stomach tightened.
“What?”
“You recognized something.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
She hated how quickly he read people.
She looked again.
Then she remembered.
“My father’s storage unit.”
Victor paused.
“What about it?”
“The unit number was 417.”
Adrian stared at her.
“Was?”
“My mother stopped paying for it after he died. I assumed everything was auctioned.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“What did your father do?”
Clara’s instinct was to give the easy answer.
Bookkeeper.
That was what she told people.
But tonight easy answers were becoming dangerous.
“He was an accountant.”
“For whom?”
She hesitated.
“A construction company.”
“Name.”
“Northstar Civil.”
Victor and Adrian exchanged a look.
Clara caught it.
“You know it.”
Victor said nothing.
Adrian did.
“Northstar handled municipal contracts for several companies connected to my father.”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
“Your father?”
Adrian’s father, Dominic Vale, had died nine years earlier.
Officially of a heart attack.
Unofficially, stories existed.
Clara had never asked which version was true.
“My father never mentioned the Vales.”
“Maybe he had a reason.”
Clara pushed back from the table.
“This is absurd. My father was a payroll accountant.”
“People who steal money need payroll accountants.”
Her face hardened.
“My father wasn’t a thief.”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You implied it.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“No. I implied he may have seen one.”
That silenced her.
Victor searched company records.
Within ten minutes, he found Northstar Civil.
Closed eight years ago.
Former president: Harold Mercer.
Former controller: Thomas Whitmore.
Clara’s father.
Her chest tightened.
“Controller?”
She stared at the screen.
“He told us he did payroll.”
Victor said, “Public filings list him as controller for six years.”
Clara felt anger before fear.
Her father had lied.
Not once.
For years.
Adrian looked at the dates.
“Northstar dissolved three months after Dominic died.”
Clara whispered, “And my father died eleven months after that.”
“What happened?”
“Car accident.”
Victor typed.
“Where?”
“Interstate 94.”
“When?”
“October eighteenth.”
Victor searched.
The accident report appeared.
Single vehicle.
Wet road.
Loss of control.
No witnesses.
Adrian’s expression changed slightly.
Clara saw it.
“What?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Knowing something and deciding I’m too fragile to hear it.”
Victor almost smiled.
Adrian did not.
He pulled up a chair across from her.
“My father had money disappearing from Northstar-related projects before he died.”
“How much?”
“We never established the total.”
“Did you suspect my father?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t know his name until five minutes ago.”
Clara looked down at the photograph again.
SHE SEES MORE THAN SHE SHOULD.
For the first time, the words felt older than the picture.
Not a warning about Clara.
A warning repeating itself.
Her father had seen something too.
Perhaps that was why he had lied about his job.
Perhaps that was why he had kept a storage unit.
Perhaps his death had not been an accident.
Clara’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Victor reached for it.
Adrian stopped him.
“Speaker.”
Clara answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then breathing.
A distorted voice said, “You should have stayed quiet like your father.”
The line went dead.
Clara stared at the phone.
Victor immediately began tracing the number.
Adrian’s face had turned lethal.
Clara whispered, “They knew him.”
“Yes.”
“And they know me.”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“I’m going to that storage facility.”
“No.”
She looked at Adrian.
“If unit 417 still exists—”
“It was seven years ago.”
“The note says 0417.”
“Which could be bait.”
“Or it could be the reason someone has been following me.”
Victor said, “She’s right.”
Adrian glared at him.
Victor shrugged.
“She is.”
An hour later, they were driving through the city.
Clara sat in the rear seat beside Adrian.
Victor rode in front.
Two security vehicles followed.
The storage company had changed ownership twice, but the original facility still existed.
A night manager met them at the gate.
He was nervous before he recognized Adrian.
After recognition, he became terrified.
Victor handled the conversation.
Unit 417 had indeed belonged to Thomas Whitmore.
But according to the system, it had never been auctioned.
Clara stared at the manager.
“My mother stopped paying.”
The man checked again.
“Payments continued.”
“By whom?”
“No name. Automatic cashier’s checks.”
“For seven years?”
“Yes.”
Clara looked at Adrian.
Someone had preserved her father’s storage unit.
The manager led them through a long concrete hallway.
The air smelled of dust and metal.
At 417, he stopped.
A modern padlock hung from the latch.
Victor frowned.
“This wasn’t installed seven years ago.”
The manager shook his head.
“No.”
“When was it changed?”
“I’d have to check maintenance records.”
Adrian motioned for his security man.
Bolt cutters snapped the lock.
The door rolled upward.
Inside were three cardboard boxes.
One desk.
And a steel filing cabinet.
Clara stepped forward.
Victor stopped her.
“Wait.”
Security checked the unit.
Nothing moved.
No wires.
No hidden person.
Clara entered.
The desk was her father’s.
She knew from the burn mark near the corner where he had once dropped a soldering iron.
Her throat tightened.
On the desk sat a framed photograph of Clara at sixteen.
Someone had dusted it recently.
Clara touched the frame.
Adrian noticed.
“This place has been maintained.”
“Yes.”
Victor opened the first box.
Tax returns.
Receipts.
Family records.
The second contained Northstar contracts.
The third was empty except for an old calculator.
Adrian examined the filing cabinet.
Locked.
Clara crouched beside the desk.
Her father used to hide spare keys beneath drawers.
She ran her fingers along the underside.
Tape.
She peeled it away.
A small brass key fell into her palm.
Victor looked impressed.
Clara inserted it into the filing cabinet.
The lock clicked.
Inside were dozens of folders.
Most had company names.
Several belonged to businesses currently controlled by Adrian.
One folder had no company name.
Just a handwritten letter:
A.
Adrian stepped beside her.
Clara opened it.
Inside was a ledger.
Pages of transactions.
Dates.
Names.
Amounts.
Several initials.
And one repeated code.
M.B.
Marcus Bell.
Clara looked at Adrian.
Before either spoke, Victor’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression darkened.
“What?”
He listened.
Then looked directly at Adrian.
“Someone just broke into Clara’s apartment.”
Clara froze.
Victor continued listening.
“They didn’t take jewelry. They didn’t take electronics.”
Adrian’s eyes shifted toward the ledger in Clara’s hands.
“What did they take?”
May you like
Victor’s face went still.
“Her father’s old briefcase.”
