Chapter 13 - Dominic’s Final Account
Detective Ortiz arrived within fifteen minutes.
Security footage showed a delivery courier entering the building with food orders. He wore a helmet and kept his face turned away from the cameras.
No residents remembered ordering delivery.
The photograph had been printed recently.
Dominic was in federal custody.
Bernice was in county jail.
Grant, Rebecca, Trevor, Austin, and Keaton were all being monitored.
Someone else remained outside.
Someone who knew about the brake line.
Ortiz reviewed every name from Martin’s records and Keaton’s video. Most were already identified.
One set of initials appeared repeatedly without explanation.
E.M.
Payments had been made to E.M. for “mechanical services,” “transport,” and “cleanup.”
The repair shop that serviced my car was registered to Edwin Mercer.
He had disappeared after police inspected my vehicle.
His shop was empty.
His house had been abandoned.
His bank accounts showed cash deposits linked to Dominic.
Detective Ortiz issued a warrant.
My employer increased building security and arranged transportation for me. Marissa insisted that I stay with her until Mercer was found.
I hated leaving my apartment again.
But refusing protection would not make me strong.
It would make me easy to reach.
Three days passed.
Then four.
Mercer remained missing.
On the fifth evening, I received a call from the prison where Keaton was being held before sentencing.
He had been attacked.
Another inmate struck him in the shower area, breaking his jaw and leaving him unconscious.
The attacker had received money through an account linked to Edwin Mercer.
Dominic was eliminating witnesses from inside custody.
Or someone was acting on his instructions.
Keaton survived, but his sentencing was delayed.
Detective Ortiz interviewed him in the hospital under guard.
Unable to speak clearly, he wrote one word on a pad.
CABIN.
Beneath it, he wrote a location in the mountains two hours north of the city.
According to Keaton, Bernice and Dominic used the property years earlier. Austin had once stored documents there.
Federal agents searched the cabin.
They found weapons, cash, fake passports, and a computer server containing Dominic’s final records.
They also found Edwin Mercer.
Dead.
He had been shot two days earlier.
At first, investigators assumed Dominic ordered the killing.
Then they examined the server.
Mercer had accessed the files after Dominic’s arrest. He attempted to sell information and money-transfer codes to an unknown buyer.
The cabin’s security system recorded the killer.
A woman entered wearing a hooded coat.
She shot Mercer.
Then she removed the hood.
Rebecca Sloan.
Leonard’s former assistant was supposed to be in federal protection.
Instead, she had escaped supervision forty-eight hours earlier using identification documents that had not yet been discovered.
Rebecca had not merely worked for Dominic.
She had planned to replace him.
She knew where funds were hidden.
She knew which witnesses remained dangerous.
And she knew enough about my company to access accounts no one else understood.
The threatening photograph had come from her.
Ortiz warned that Rebecca might attempt one final transfer before leaving the country.
My company’s systems were locked down, but Rebecca had designed several hidden access paths.
We gathered in the corporate security center: Ortiz, federal agents, Marissa, the interim CFO, systems engineers, and me.
At 11:48 p.m., an inactive reserve account came online.
A transfer began.
Nine hundred thousand dollars moved toward a foreign bank.
The account required physical authentication from a secure executive terminal.
Rebecca was inside the building.
Security sealed all exits.
Cameras were reviewed floor by floor.
At 11:53, a woman in a maintenance uniform entered the thirty-second-floor executive suite.
Her face was partly hidden by a mask.
She carried a cleaning cart.
Inside the cart, security found an empty case designed to hold a rifle.
The camera feed went black.
“She disabled the floor,” a systems engineer said.
My office was on the thirty-second floor.
So was the terminal controlling the reserve account.
A message appeared across my computer screen.
COME UP ALONE, CLAIRE.
OR THE MONEY MOVES AND YOUR TEAM DIES.
A live camera window opened.
Rebecca stood inside the executive conference room.
Priya and two night-shift analysts sat on the floor with their hands bound.
Rebecca held a gun.
Behind her, the transfer countdown showed seven minutes.
Ortiz said, “We’re sending a tactical team through the service stairs.”
“She knows those routes,” I replied.
“We are not sending you.”
“She asked for me because she needs something.”
“She wants leverage.”
“She already has leverage.”
Priya looked into the camera.
Rebecca pressed the gun against her head.
Six minutes remained.
I remembered what I had told the board.
Silence made exploitation profitable.
But reckless heroism could get people killed.
“I’ll go to the lobby outside the floor,” I said. “You control the elevators and cover every entrance. I keep her talking while the team approaches.”
Ortiz resisted.
The federal commander agreed.
At 11:57, I entered the elevator wearing a concealed microphone and protective vest.
The doors closed.
My reflection stared back at me.
Months earlier, I had believed the greatest battle in my home concerned who paid for dinner.
Now I understood that the noodles had never been the conflict.
They had simply been the first moment I stopped obeying.
The elevator reached the thirty-second floor.
The doors opened.
Rebecca stood at the far end of the darkened hallway.
“Right on time,” she said.
The countdown behind her showed three minutes.
Then I noticed the wires running beneath the conference-room table.
May you like
Rebecca had not only brought a gun.
She had brought the completed explosive device Dominic failed to use.
