Chapter 3 - THE COMPANY WITH HER NAME
Paige laughed.
It was not amusement.
It was the sound a person makes when reality becomes too ridiculous to process normally.
“Of course.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Of course?”
“Why wouldn’t I secretly own a five-million-dollar freight company while working two jobs and eating protein bars for dinner?”
Nico almost smiled.
Gabriel did not.
He opened the corporate registration.
Northstar Freight Consulting LLC.
Managing Member:
Paige Elizabeth Winslow.
Address:
Her old apartment.
Formed:
Twenty-six months earlier.
Her Social Security number partially visible in supporting records.
Her birthday.
Her identity.
Paige stopped laughing.
“I didn’t create this.”
“I believe you.”
She looked at Gabriel.
That answer came too quickly.
“Why?”
“Because if you were stealing millions from me, calling me honey in front of thirty employees would be a remarkably poor criminal strategy.”
Nico looked away.
Paige almost laughed again.
Almost.
Then Gabriel continued:
“And because someone who stole four-point-seven million dollars would probably not beg for twenty-four hours to pay four hundred.”
The burner-phone call.
He heard more than she realized.
Paige felt embarrassed.
Then angry at being embarrassed.
“My financial humiliation is apparently very useful evidence.”
“It is.”
“Wonderful.”
Nico traced the registration filing.
Submitted online from an IP address associated with a law firm.
Rathburn & Cole.
One partner handled corporate formations for Moretti Logistics.
Gabriel knew him.
“Call Rathburn.”
Ten minutes later, attorney Steven Rathburn denied remembering Northstar specifically.
Thousands of companies.
Standard filing.
Who requested it?
Records showed a client code.
MV-14.
Martin Vale.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
Paige stared.
“Why put it in my name?”
“Because you’re clean.”
“What?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“No criminal history. No corporate ownership. No high income. No connection to syndicate leadership.”
“So invisible.”
He said nothing.
That silence confirmed it.
Paige had spent two years feeling ashamed of how small her life became.
Apparently that smallness made her useful.
Then another question.
“Kevin knew.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Unknown.”
Paige thought about their relationship.
Kevin joking while she designed the Northstar logo.
Kevin asking for scans of her license because they were supposedly applying for a new apartment.
Kevin borrowing her laptop.
Kevin knowing her mother’s maiden name.
Her stomach turned.
“He stole my identity.”
“Likely.”
She closed her eyes.
The breakup she thought happened in one night had probably been planned for months.
Then Nico received a report from building security.
Martin Vale left through the parking garage at 4:52 p.m.
Kevin was not captured leaving.
Meaning he might still be inside.
Gabriel stood.
“Lock the building.”
Paige looked at him.
“Is that legal?”
“My building.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
His eyes moved toward her.
“Security lockdown based on documented potential fraud involving company systems.”
Annoyingly better.
Nico issued instructions.
Then Paige remembered the portfolio.
“Kevin’s case.”
“What about it?”
“The logo.”
Draft seven.
There had been something hidden inside draft seven.
Not intentionally.
A design mistake.
Paige had used a stock texture she later removed because it contained tiny embedded numbers in the vector pattern.
Kevin complained the file was too large.
She fixed it.
If someone had used the draft itself as an official company mark, those numbers might still exist in high-resolution versions.
“What numbers?” Gabriel asked.
“Asset-library reference codes.”
“Useful?”
“Maybe.”
They downloaded one high-resolution Northstar invoice.
Paige enlarged the logo.
There.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
A sequence:
417-23-09.
Nico stared.
“Account?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Container format.”
Moretti shipping containers used routing identifiers with similar grouping.
They searched.
Container 417-23-09.
Manifest status:
Destroyed after fire.
Eighteen months ago.
Cargo:
Industrial machinery.
Insurance payout:
$3.2 million.
Then Gabriel checked who approved the loss.
Martin Vale.
Paige’s pulse sharpened.
Northstar was not merely a fake consulting company.
Her forgotten design draft was attached to a container involved in a multimillion-dollar insurance claim.
Then Nico found the inspection photos.
Inside the burned container, one metal case survived.
Stamped with the same geometric logo.
Northstar.
And beneath it:
P.W.
May you like
Paige Winslow.
Someone had been writing her name into the crime for years.
