Chapter 3 - THE ELEVATOR TO THE FORTY-SECOND FLOOR
Larkin removed me from the gala.
I hated that phrase because it sounds voluntary.
It was not.
He placed one hand at the small of my back and guided me toward the private elevators while Thomas argued behind us.
I stopped.
“Take your hand off me.”
Larkin did.
Immediately.
Good.
Then:
“You’re leaving.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m not discussing this.”
“I am.”
“Penelope.”
“I just learned my dead father had evidence against half this ballroom and you apparently recruited me because people were searching for it.”
“Yes.”
“And your cousin used me as bait.”
“Yes.”
“And now you think I’m getting into an elevator because you said so?”
Larkin stared.
Then sighed.
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
“You will get it somewhere safer.”
I thought.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
Thomas tried to join us.
Larkin stopped the elevator doors with one hand.
“No.”
Thomas laughed.
“Seriously?”
“Go home.”
“You don’t order me around.”
“I do tonight.”
The doors closed on Thomas’s face.
For twenty floors, nobody spoke.
Then I asked:
“Did you know about my student loans?”
Larkin looked confused.
“What?”
“Did you know I owed ninety thousand dollars when you hired me?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
“How?”
“Background investigation.”
“Did you know my mother was dead?”
“Yes.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“My address?”
“Yes.”
“Medical records?”
“No.”
“Bank balances?”
“Enough.”
I laughed once.
“You didn’t hire an employee.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I located a risk.”
That was worse.
At the forty-second floor, the office was dark.
Larkin unlocked his private suite.
Inside, he opened a safe.
Not the one I knew behind the painting.
Another beneath the floor.
He removed one folder.
JOSEPH WOODS.
My father’s name.
I sat.
Not because he told me.
Because my legs stopped working properly.
Larkin opened it.
Photographs.
My father leaving federal buildings.
Meeting lawyers.
Sitting with my mother.
Then one picture of him with a much younger Larkin.
I stared.
“You said you didn’t know him personally.”
“I said not personally in the way Roman implied.”
“You’re in a photograph.”
“I was nineteen.”
“What happened?”
Larkin sat across from me.
“My father was alive then. He ran the organization.”
I knew his father died five years ago.
“Your father was investigating shell companies connected to us.”
“My father was an accountant.”
“For the government sometimes.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Contract forensic work.”
I had never known.
“He discovered a laundering structure involving my father, Bellini interests, and three banks.”
My chest tightened.
“Did your father kill him?”
Larkin did not answer immediately.
Wrong.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer sounded truthful.
I hated it.
“Why do you have this file?”
“Because after my father died, I found it.”
“And then?”
“I started looking for you.”
“Why?”
“Because one page inside listed Margaret Woods as emergency custodian.”
My mother.
“What does that mean?”
Larkin pushed the page toward me.
Joseph Woods had created a contingency plan.
If something happened to him, a sealed evidence package would go to Margaret.
If Margaret was unavailable—
Next custodian:
Penelope Woods.
My name.
Age nineteen.
Address from college.
I stared.
“I never received anything.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because if you had, somebody would’ve come for you.”
“Maybe they did.”
Silence.
My father’s crash.
My mother’s later death from illness.
No.
Do not manufacture connections.
Facts.
Then Larkin said:
“The evidence package disappeared.”
“So you hired me because you thought I had it.”
“At first.”
There.
“At first?”
“Yes.”
“What changed?”
He looked at me.
“You.”
I almost laughed.
“That is not an answer.”
“You spent three years entering numbers no ordinary person would question.”
“I questioned them.”
“I know.”
My pulse changed.
“What do you mean?”
He opened another folder.
Copies.
My copies.
The spreadsheets I had secretly backed up.
Not all.
Enough.
I stood.
“You’ve been monitoring me.”
“Yes.”
Rage exploded.
“I knew it.”
“You were copying criminal accounts.”
“Because someone was stealing from you.”
Larkin went completely still.
“What?”
I realized what I had admitted.
For six months, I had noticed discrepancies.
Not laundering.
The organization obviously laundered money.
Someone inside was taking it.
Small percentages from dozens of companies.
Millions annually.
I had not reported it because I was afraid the thief might be Larkin himself.
He leaned forward.
“How much?”
“At least eleven million.”
His face changed.
“Show me.”
I opened my encrypted drive.
Then stopped.
One account name had never made sense.
WDS HOLDINGS.
Now it did.
Woods.
May you like
My father’s surname.
Someone had been moving stolen syndicate money through a company carrying my family name.
