Chapter 5 - The Night at the Bluffs
They sat around a low wooden table beneath the single bulb, the heavy dog lying across Julian’s boots, refusing to move even an inch.
Katherine held a ceramic mug of instant coffee with both hands, her fingers still shaking. The story came out in jagged, ragged fragments—a mosaic of betrayal that had begun six months before the crash.
"Vincent didn't just gamble the offshore money, Julian," Katherine said, her voice hollow. "He borrowed twelve million from the Moretti syndicate in Montreal. When they demanded the collateral, he offered them the maritime shipping manifests for our terminal in Bayonne. The customs codes. The container seals."
"He was running illicit freight through our private berths," Julian said, his voice hardening into absolute ice.
"I found the duplicate ledgers in his office safe," she continued, touching the scar along her cheekbone with a thumb that trembled. "The night we fought... I wasn't just angry with you. I was terrified. I thought if I went to the district attorney alone, your name would be cleared before Vincent’s associates could plant the records in your office. But Vincent had tapped our home lines. He knew I had the thumb drive."
She closed her eyes, the memory causing her shoulders to hitch.
"He followed me in his Range Rover along the bluffs," she whispered. "He didn't just run me off the road, Julian. He rammed the rear axle three times on the hairpin turn. When the car went through the guardrail, I managed to release Bruno’s travel crate in the back. We hit the water. The windshield gave way... I don't remember the swim to the rocks. Bruno pulled me onto the sand by the hem of my jacket. I woke up coughing salt water, watching my car sink into the darkness."
"Why didn't you come to me?" Julian asked, his voice cracking with the agony of two months of solitary mourning. "I had sixty men under arms. I would have burned the state to the ground to keep you safe."
Katherine looked at him with an intensity that burned through the dingy room.
"Because the Suffolk County police captain was sitting in Vincent’s library having a drink three hours after the crash," she said. "I saw them from the woods near the gatehouse. The coroner was Vincent’s college roommate. If I appeared, they would have finished the job in an emergency room before you ever received the call. I needed the records, Julian. I spent eight weeks tracking Vincent’s courier between Albany and this station. The original manifest is in a safe-deposit box at the Beacon Trust Company."
A soft, sharp chime sounded from Frank’s phone on the table.
May you like
Frank glanced at the screen, his eyebrows drawing together into a single, dark line.
"Julian," Frank said, rising from his chair and pulling his weapon from his coat. "We have three black Suburbans entering the lower end of Ferry Street. No license plates. They aren't local deputies."
