Chapter 4 - The Locked Archive
Dominic did not confront Lucian immediately.
Anger wanted confrontation.
Experience demanded proof.
The next morning he called the company's outside attorney, Samuel Keene, and requested every trust amendment filed in the previous eighteen months.
Then he asked corporate security for the report concerning Elise Gardner's missing notary stamp.
There was no report.
Dominic asked again.
The security director searched three databases.
Nothing.
"Who supervised the department last year?" Dominic asked.
"Operationally? Mr. Hale."
Dominic leaned back.
A pattern was forming.
He hated patterns that involved people he trusted.
Lucian had been at his wedding.
Lucian had held Emma in the hospital the day she was born.
Lucian had stood beside Dominic at Angelo's funeral.
Betrayal from a stranger was theft.
Betrayal from family was surgery without anesthesia.
Across town, Margaret visited the oldest Romano Holdings records facility.
It occupied the basement of a commercial building Angelo had purchased twenty-two years earlier.
The receptionist recognized her immediately.
"Mrs. Romano."
Margaret smiled.
"I need access to archived foundation statements."
The young woman looked uncomfortable.
"I'll need authorization."
"I am a trustee."
"Of course. But there was a policy change."
"Whose policy?"
The receptionist looked at her monitor.
"Mr. Hale."
Margaret almost laughed.
Lucian seemed to exist behind every closed door.
"Call Dominic."
The woman reached for the phone.
A voice came from behind them.
"Margaret?"
Arthur Bell, seventy-one, emerged from the records corridor.
He had been Angelo's personal bookkeeper before retiring.
He looked genuinely delighted.
Margaret hugged him.
"I thought you moved to Florida."
"My wife hated the humidity."
Arthur noticed the handbag.
"Good Lord. You still have that thing?"
Margaret smiled.
"Angelo would be offended if I replaced it."
Arthur's expression changed at the mention of Angelo.
"Come downstairs."
The receptionist started to protest.
Arthur waved her away.
"If anyone complains, tell them a senile retiree kidnapped her."
Downstairs, he closed the archive door.
"You didn't come here for foundation statements."
Margaret stared at him.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because Angelo came here three weeks before he died."
Her heartbeat quickened.
"What was he looking for?"
Arthur walked toward a locked cabinet.
"Shipping subsidiaries."
"Romano doesn't operate shipping directly anymore."
"Exactly."
Arthur unlocked the cabinet.
Most shelves were empty.
He frowned.
"No."
"What?"
"Files are missing."
"Which files?"
"Everything from Meridian Maritime."
Margaret knew the name.
She had seen it inside the blue ledger.
Arthur turned toward her.
"Who knows you're here?"
"No one."
"Keep it that way."
He lowered his voice.
"Angelo believed somebody was moving money through companies Romano Holdings didn't actually control."
"Lucian?"
"Angelo never gave me a name."
Margaret touched her handbag.
"Do you know Peter Voss?"
Arthur went still.
"Why?"
"He called me."
Arthur looked toward the door.
"When?"
"Yesterday."
"Margaret, Peter didn't resign."
"What happened?"
"He came to me the night before he disappeared from the office. He was terrified."
"Of whom?"
"He wouldn't say."
Arthur walked toward an old filing cabinet.
From the back he removed a yellow envelope.
"Angelo asked me to give you this if you ever came asking about Meridian Maritime."
Margaret's hands trembled.
She opened it.
Inside was a safe deposit receipt.
The box number matched a number written beside one of the ledger entries.
Box 317.
Then she saw the bank name.
St. Gabriel Private Bank.
A brass key would be required.
Margaret already had it.
She looked at Arthur.
"What is inside?"
"I don't know."
"Did Angelo?"
Arthur nodded.
"He said it contained the difference between suspicion and proof."
Margaret closed her eyes.
Certainty.
That was what Angelo had meant.
Before she could speak, a sound came from outside the archive.
A metallic click.
Arthur looked toward the door.
Someone was trying the handle.
Margaret put the receipt into her handbag.
Arthur switched off the light.
They waited.
The handle moved again.
Then stopped.
Footsteps retreated.
Arthur opened the door ten seconds later.
The corridor was empty.
But lying on the floor was a single burgundy thread.
May you like
Margaret recognized the exact shade.
Valeria's dress.
