Chapter 2 - THE ACCOUNT THAT DIDN’T EXIST
Rachel had spent seven years finding money people desperately wanted hidden.
She had never expected hidden money to find her.
By sunrise, she was lying in a guest room on the thirty-eighth floor of a private Gold Coast building owned by Nicholas Valenti.
A doctor had treated early frostbite and mild hypothermia.
Her toes would recover.
Her hands would recover.
Her trust in human beings felt less certain.
Nicholas stood near the window.
Rachel held the black folder on her lap.
“What Valenti account?”
“That’s what I need you to tell me.”
“I’ve never audited you.”
“Not officially.”
Rachel frowned.
Nicholas placed a laptop on the bed.
A spreadsheet filled the screen.
She recognized the formatting immediately.
Meridian.
More specifically, her formatting.
“This came from my work computer.”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
She scanned the transactions.
Shell companies.
Commercial properties.
Wire transfers crossing Nevada, Delaware, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands.
But one thing was strange.
The numbers didn’t make sense.
Not because they were random.
Because they were too clean.
Rachel leaned closer.
“These aren’t laundering records.”
Nicholas watched her.
“What are they?”
“A map.”
“To what?”
She scrolled faster.
Her pulse accelerated.
Someone had embedded repeating transaction values into apparently legitimate accounting entries.
Coordinates? Dates? Account identifiers?
Rachel grabbed a notebook.
Ten minutes later, she stopped writing.
Nicholas saw her expression change.
“What?”
Rachel turned the screen toward him.
“These transfers aren’t yours.”
“They use my companies.”
“They’re designed to look like yours.”
Silence.
Daniel entered the room.
“We found something in Cole’s house.”
He placed a small plastic evidence bag on the table.
Inside was a tiny black device.
A wireless cloning transmitter.
Rachel recognized the model.
“That can copy data from nearby laptops.”
Daniel nodded.
“It was under your home-office desk.”
Rachel’s stomach turned.
Evan hadn’t simply read her messages.
He had been stealing her work.
For months.
She looked at Nicholas.
“Why would Mercer want to frame you?”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened.
“Because somebody has been building a financial case strong enough to destroy every legitimate company I own.”
Rachel stared again at the numbers.
Then she saw it.
A hidden pattern inside the transfer dates.
She entered four dates into the Meridian search portal.
Four client names appeared.
All deceased.
All former clients whose records Rachel herself had reviewed.
Her breath caught.
“They’re dead.”
Nicholas stepped closer.
“What?”
“These people died within weeks of these transactions.”
Daniel looked at Nicholas.
Rachel kept scrolling.
Then another client appeared.
One who was still alive.
Rachel Bennett.
Her own name.
Beside it was a date.
March 28.
May you like
Six weeks away.
Her wedding day.
