Chapter 5 - THE MAN ACROSS THE STREET
“Back exit. Now.”
Dominic didn't shout.
He didn't need to.
Everything happened at once.
One guard took Evelyn.
Another grabbed the evidence.
Dominic caught my wrist and pulled me toward a service corridor.
“Who is that man?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
“You recognized him.”
“He was near the bookstore last night.”
That changed his expression.
We reached an underground parking garage.
A black sedan was already waiting.
Then someone appeared between two concrete pillars.
Dominic pushed me behind him.
The stranger raised both hands.
“I'm not armed.”
Dominic's men surrounded him.
He was maybe forty, with a scar near his left ear.
“I need to speak to Mrs. Vescari.”
“Bad opening sentence,” Dominic said.
The stranger looked toward Evelyn.
“My name is Daniel Shaw.”
Evelyn gasped.
Memory flashed across her face.
“You.”
Daniel nodded.
“I sent you the recording.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Start explaining.”
Daniel had been Anthony Vescari's accountant eighteen years earlier.
After Anthony's death, he disappeared.
Everyone assumed he had stolen money.
In reality, he said, he'd discovered Victor was moving millions through companies Anthony didn't know existed.
“I tried to warn your father.”
“And then he died,” Dominic said.
“Yes.”
“Convenient.”
Daniel didn't flinch.
“I ran because Victor killed the other accountant.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
More memories were returning.
She remembered meeting Daniel secretly in London.
She remembered the flash drive.
She remembered realizing someone had followed her from the airport.
Then she remembered the robbery.
“The boys didn't want my money.”
She looked at me.
“They wanted the purse because Daniel told me the evidence was inside it.”
Daniel frowned.
“But it wasn't.”
“No.”
Evelyn touched my arm.
“I moved it before they caught me.”
Everyone stared at her.
“Where?”
She looked confused again.
Then Dominic's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face darkened.
“My men found the teenagers.”
“Good,” I said.
“No.”
His voice became flat.
“They're gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Dead?”
“No. Someone paid for bus tickets and sent them out of state before dawn.”
Daniel cursed quietly.
Dominic looked at him.
“Who knew my mother was meeting you?”
Daniel hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
Dominic grabbed his coat.
“Who?”
“Only three people.”
“Names.”
“You.”
Dominic stared.
“Your mother.”
Daniel swallowed.
“And the man who has controlled your security for twelve years.”
I already knew the answer before he said it.
“Rafe Calder.”
May you like
Dominic's most trusted guard had known where Evelyn would be.
And five minutes earlier, Rafe had been the man who carried the evidence out of the vault.
