Chapter 2 - The Man Who Stood Beside Me
Mara stared at the photograph until the pixels blurred.
Luca reached her first.
“What happened?”
She showed him.
He didn't touch the phone.
His expression became unreadable.
“Did you leave your apartment unlocked?”
“No.”
“Does anyone else have a key?”
Mara thought of Nolan.
Years earlier, she had given him one.
He claimed he lost it after they stopped spending as many nights together.
“Yes.”
Luca looked toward the rooftop.
Nolan was gone.
So was Celeste.
“Who?”
“Nolan.”
Luca pulled out his phone.
Mara caught his wrist.
“No.”
He looked at her hand.
She released him immediately.
“I'm not becoming evidence in somebody else's war,” she said. “If you know something, tell me.”
“I know the address attached to those transfers belongs to a property my father once owned.”
“Your father?”
“He died twelve years ago.”
Mara's stomach tightened.
“And the company was dissolved eleven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“So someone resurrected a dead company connected to your dead father.”
“Apparently.”
“And Nolan knows about it.”
“We don't know that yet.”
“He knew I had copies.”
Luca couldn't argue with that.
Mara looked at the elevators.
“I need to see my apartment.”
“Not alone.”
She almost objected.
Then she looked at the photograph again.
“Fine.”
Twenty minutes later, Mara stood across the street from the building where she had lived for seven years.
Police were already inside.
Luca had insisted on calling them.
The apartment had been searched.
Not robbed.
Searched.
Her television remained.
Her laptop remained.
Jewelry remained inside the bedroom drawer.
Only one thing was missing.
The folder containing her backup financial records.
Mara sat at her kitchen table while an officer took notes.
Luca remained near the window.
He had not tried to answer for her once.
That surprised her.
Nolan always answered for her.
At restaurants.
At meetings.
At parties.
Mara hadn't noticed how much she hated it until someone didn't.
“Any enemies?” the officer asked.
Mara gave a humorless laugh.
“I apparently acquired several tonight.”
After the police left, she found Luca studying a framed photograph on the bookshelf.
It showed Mara at nineteen with her mother, Elaine.
“You knew her?”
Luca turned.
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Something in his answer bothered Mara.
“You hesitated.”
“I recognized the name.”
“From where?”
Before he could answer, someone knocked.
Mara stiffened.
Three knocks.
Then silence.
Luca moved toward the door.
Mara followed.
He looked through the peephole.
His shoulders changed.
“Who is it?”
“Pierce.”
Mara opened the door before Luca could stop her.
Nolan stood in the hallway.
His tie was gone.
His perfect hair wasn't perfect anymore.
He looked past Mara and saw Luca.
His expression became vicious.
“So it's true.”
Mara stared at him.
“What?”
“You leave my event with him and suddenly he's in your apartment?”
Luca remained silent.
Mara felt something inside her settle.
For three years, Nolan had made her explain herself.
Tonight she didn't.
“What do you want?”
“The documents.”
“They're gone.”
Nolan blinked.
“What?”
“Someone broke in.”
For the first time, his anger disappeared.
“Were they taken?”
Mara watched him carefully.
“You tell me.”
“Mara, this isn't a game.”
“No. Apparently it's $4.8 million.”
Nolan lowered his voice.
“You have no idea what you've gotten into.”
“Then explain it.”
“I can't.”
“You mean you won't.”
He glanced toward Luca.
“Not with him here.”
Luca finally spoke.
“That's convenient.”
Nolan ignored him.
“Mara, come downstairs.”
“No.”
“Five minutes.”
“No.”
His face twisted.
“You always do this.”
Mara almost smiled.
“Do what?”
“Make everything difficult.”
Something about the sentence broke the final thread.
Not because it was cruel.
Because it was familiar.
She had spent years making herself easier.
Easier to hide.
Easier to cancel on.
Easier to criticize.
Easier to use.
And somehow Nolan still believed she was the difficult one.
“You announced another engagement in front of me,” Mara said. “You accused me of stealing millions, had security remove me, and someone broke into my apartment. But I'm difficult?”
Nolan looked away.
Mara stepped closer.
“You didn't love me.”
He said nothing.
“You loved what I did for you.”
“Mara—”
“Did you ever plan to tell me about Celeste?”
His silence answered.
Mara nodded.
“Leave.”
Nolan's eyes hardened.
“You think Moretti is helping you because he cares?”
“I didn't say he cared.”
“He wants those records.”
Luca didn't deny it.
Mara noticed.
Nolan noticed her noticing.
“There,” he said. “Ask him why.”
Mara turned.
“Why?”
Luca met her eyes.
“Because the transactions connect to my father's former company.”
“That's all?”
“No.”
Nolan laughed.
“Tell her.”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“Tell me what?”
Nolan stepped backward into the hall.
“Ask him who investigated Blackthorne Meridian eleven years ago.”
Mara looked at Luca.
He was silent.
Her pulse quickened.
“Who?”
Nolan smiled without humor.
“Your mother.”
Everything stopped.
Mara turned toward Luca.
“My mother was a school accountant.”
“No,” Luca said quietly. “She wasn't.”
Mara stared at him.
“What did you say?”
“Not then.”
Luca reached into the inside pocket of his jacket.
He removed a folded photocopy.
Old.
Creased.
He placed it on the table.
At the top was a municipal financial-crimes task-force letterhead.
Below it:
ELAINE BENNETT — FORENSIC ACCOUNTING CONSULTANT.
Mara couldn't breathe.
Her mother had died when Mara was twenty-one.
Cancer.
Six months from diagnosis to funeral.
She had left behind recipes, old sweaters, unpaid medical bills and a daughter who thought she knew everything important about her.
“What is this?”
Luca spoke carefully.
“Your mother was hired to trace financial irregularities involving my father's businesses.”
“Why didn't she tell me?”
“I don't know.”
Nolan was still standing in the doorway.
Mara turned on him.
“How did you know?”
He looked suddenly uncomfortable.
“Nolan.”
“I found her name years ago.”
“Where?”
“In company archives.”
“What company?”
He hesitated.
That was answer enough.
“Pierce Financial?”
“My father's records.”
Mara stared.
Nolan's father.
Luca's father.
Her mother.
Eleven years ago.
The same dead company.
The same money.
“You knew who my mother was when you hired me?”
Nolan said nothing.
Mara's heart sank.
“When we met,” she whispered, “you already knew?”
“Mara, it wasn't like that.”
“When?”
Silence.
“When did you find out?”
“Before your second interview.”
She stepped backward.
Three years of memories rearranged themselves.
Their first lunch.
His fascination with her family.
Questions about her mother's old belongings.
Whether Mara had kept her files.
Whether she had inherited storage units.
Whether her mother had ever talked about work.
Mara had mistaken curiosity for intimacy.
Her stomach turned.
“You didn't hire me because I was good.”
Nolan stepped forward.
“You were excellent.”
“But that's not why you noticed me.”
“Mara—”
“You were looking for something.”
Nolan's face answered before his mouth did.
Luca moved slightly closer, but Mara lifted a hand.
She didn't need protection from the truth.
Not anymore.
“What was my mother investigating?”
Nolan whispered, “I don't know.”
“Lie again and leave.”
“I swear.”
“Then why did you date me?”
His eyes dropped.
That hurt more than she expected.
Mara nodded slowly.
“Right.”
“It became real.”
“Did it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why Celeste?”
Nolan's face hardened again, because cruelty was easier for him than shame.
“Because my life was changing.”
“So was mine.”
“You don't understand the expectations.”
Mara laughed softly.
There it was.
“Say it.”
“Mara.”
“Say what you mean.”
He stared at her pale blue gown.
At the body he had loved privately and hidden publicly.
“You didn't fit the image I needed.”
The words landed quietly.
Mara expected them to destroy her.
They didn't.
Maybe because she had already spent years saying worse things to herself.
She opened the door wider.
“Get out.”
Nolan left.
Before the elevator closed, he looked back.
“You should be careful with Moretti.”
Then he was gone.
Mara shut the door.
She didn't cry.
Not yet.
She returned to the table.
Luca remained beside the old document.
“You knew my mother investigated your father.”
“Yes.”
“And you recognized me tonight.”
“Yes.”
“That's why you intervened.”
“Partly.”
The word irritated her.
“What's the other part?”
“I watched Pierce accuse you while knowing his own numbers didn't support the accusation.”
“That sounds almost noble.”
“I'm not asking you to think it is.”
Mara studied him.
“What happened to my mother's investigation?”
“It disappeared.”
“What does that mean?”
“All copies vanished from the official archive.”
“When?”
“Three days after my father died.”
Mara felt cold.
“And Blackthorne Meridian?”
“Dissolved eight months later.”
“By whom?”
“We never knew.”
Mara sat down.
The room felt suddenly unfamiliar.
Her mother had possessed an entire life Mara knew nothing about.
Luca pushed the old page toward her.
“There was one thing left.”
“What?”
“A reference to a physical ledger.”
“Where?”
“The report never said.”
Mara thought of her mother's belongings.
Most had been boxed for years.
One box remained in the closet.
She stood abruptly.
Luca followed her to the bedroom.
Mara pulled down a faded cardboard box marked MOM.
Inside were photographs.
Tax returns.
Recipe cards.
A blue scarf.
An old address book.
At the bottom was a jewelry case Mara hadn't opened in years.
She lifted it.
Something rattled underneath the velvet insert.
Mara frowned.
She pulled the lining back.
A small brass key fell into her palm.
A paper tag was attached.
Three handwritten characters appeared on it.
B-317.
Luca went completely still.
“What?”
He looked at the key.
Then at Mara.
“B-317 isn't a storage locker.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I've seen that numbering system.”
“Where?”
Luca's answer was barely above a whisper.
“Under my father's hotel.”
Mara stared at him.
Her phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
DON'T TAKE LUCA TO B-317.
Another message arrived immediately.
HE ALREADY KNOWS WHAT YOUR MOTHER FOUND.
Mara slowly lifted her eyes toward him.
Then someone knocked on her apartment door.
Three slow knocks.
A woman's voice came through the other side.
“Mara? My name is Celeste Vaughan.”
Silence.
May you like
Then Celeste said the words that made Luca turn pale.
“I know who killed the investigation.”
