Chapter 3 - Locker 317
By eight that morning, I had gone from worrying that Sebastian regretted sleeping with me to wondering whether someone intended to frame me for destroying his empire.
It was an impressive decline for less than two hours.
Mara Feldman arrived wearing a navy suit, rain-darkened heels, and the expression of a woman already preparing to sue the weather.
She entered Sebastian’s private conference room, looked at him, looked at me, and understood more than I wanted her to.
She said nothing about it.
That was why I liked Mara.
“Building is sealed,” she said. “Victor has every employee separated by department. Adrian still isn’t answering.”
Sebastian stood beside the window.
“Where was he last seen?”
“Carbone at eleven-thirty.”
“With?”
“Two investors and a woman nobody recognizes.”
“Find her.”
“I’m an attorney, Sebastian, not Batman.”
“You charge more.”
“That’s because Batman doesn’t bill by the hour.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Nobody did.
Mara placed a folder on the table.
“There’s another issue.”
“Of course there is.”
She slid a photograph toward Sebastian.
He didn’t touch it.
I did.
The picture showed a woman in her early fifties stepping from a black SUV outside a hotel. Dark hair. Pale coat. Large sunglasses.
I had never seen her before.
“Who is she?”
Mara watched me carefully.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
Sebastian finally looked at the photograph.
His face became stone.
“Evelyn Cross.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Should I know who that is?”
“She worked for my father.”
Something in his voice warned me this was not a happy family memory.
Sebastian’s father, Richard Ward, had died eleven years earlier. Publicly, he had been a logistics entrepreneur and philanthropist.
Privately, according to the stories, he had been ruthless even by the standards of the organization Sebastian inherited.
“What did she do for him?”
Mara answered.
“Money.”
Sebastian’s eyes remained on the photograph.
“She knew where everything was buried.”
I wasn’t sure whether he meant money.
I decided not to ask.
“Evelyn disappeared the week my father died,” he continued. “We assumed she left the country.”
“And now?”
“She checked into the Lowell Hotel yesterday under another name.”
My stomach tightened.
“The same day I came here.”
“Yes.”
I looked at Sebastian.
“You still believe that’s a coincidence?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
Mara opened another folder.
“Valerie, I need to ask you some questions.”
Sebastian turned.
“She doesn’t need an interrogation.”
“She absolutely does.”
“Mara.”
“Stop protecting people by keeping them ignorant.”
That landed.
Sebastian’s jaw flexed.
Mara pulled out a chair for me.
“Sit.”
I did.
“Who knew you were coming here last night?”
“My roommate, Natalie.”
“Anyone else?”
“My mother knew I had dinner plans, but not where.”
“Coworkers?”
“I told Claire I was leaving early.”
“Claire who?”
“Claire Monroe. Senior analyst at Merrick & Cole.”
Mara wrote the name.
“Anyone at your company know you were auditing Ward Meridian?”
“Half the office.”
“Anyone know you found the discrepancy?”
“My supervisor.”
“Name?”
“Daniel Price.”
Sebastian’s attention sharpened.
I noticed.
“What?”
“Daniel Price,” he repeated.
“Yes.”
“How long has he been your supervisor?”
“About two years.”
Sebastian looked at Mara.
She was already typing.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Mara turned her laptop around.
A corporate profile filled the screen.
Daniel Price, forty-six.
CPA.
Managing director.
Former employer: Cross Strategic Holdings.
My pulse jumped.
“Cross?”
“Evelyn Cross’s consulting company,” Mara said.
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Sebastian moved closer.
“Did Daniel ever ask you specifically about my accounts?”
“He supervised the audit. Of course he did.”
“Specifically.”
I thought back.
Daniel had been unusually interested when I found the $620,000 discrepancy.
He had asked whether Sebastian personally approved transfers.
Whether I had seen executive signatures.
Whether Ward Meridian kept paper records.
At the time, I assumed he was being thorough.
Now every question sounded different.
“He asked about document retention.”
Mara stopped typing.
“What exactly?”
“He wanted to know whether Sebastian kept physical copies of sensitive transactions.”
Sebastian and Mara exchanged a look.
My stomach dropped.
“You knew,” I said.
Sebastian’s eyes met mine.
“Knew what?”
“That somebody was asking questions.”
“I knew someone had been probing my financial structure.”
“And you still let my firm audit you?”
“I wanted to see where the questions led.”
Anger rose through my fear.
“So I was bait?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“You were never supposed to be involved.”
“But I was involved the second you realized Daniel was connected.”
“I didn’t know that until five minutes ago.”
I stood.
The room seemed too small.
I hated feeling stupid.
Worse, I hated that Sebastian’s presence still made me feel safer when he might be the reason I was in danger.
My phone buzzed.
Natalie.
I reached for it.
Sebastian said, “Wait.”
“It’s my roommate.”
“Let Victor verify—”
“I’m not handing you my phone every time someone calls.”
“Valerie.”
I answered.
“Natalie?”
Silence.
Then breathing.
“Natalie?”
A man spoke.
“Ms. Lane?”
Every person in the room froze.
“Yes?”
“You should check on your mother.”
The call ended.
I stopped breathing.
Sebastian was beside me instantly.
“What did he say?”
“My mom.”
I called her.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
I grabbed my purse.
Sebastian blocked the door.
“Move.”
“You’re not going alone.”
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
“Neither was I.”
Twenty minutes later, we were moving through Manhattan in a three-SUV convoy.
My mother lived in Queens.
The ride felt endless.
I called her eleven times.
Nothing.
Sebastian sat beside me, saying almost nothing.
At one point, he reached toward my hand, stopped, then lowered his own.
I noticed.
“You can touch me,” I said.
His eyes lifted.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
Something painful passed across his face.
“That may be the problem.”
“What does that mean?”
“You should be.”
I looked at the man everyone else feared.
“No.”
He turned toward the window.
“My father used to say fear was the cleanest form of loyalty.”
“Your father sounds charming.”
“He wasn’t.”
“I’m not loyal to you because I’m afraid.”
“I know.”
“Then stop wishing I were.”
He looked at me again.
The SUV turned onto my mother’s street.
Her front door was open.
I was out before Victor could stop me.
“Mom!”
I ran inside.
The living room was empty.
A lamp had been knocked over.
“Mom!”
Footsteps thundered behind me as Sebastian and Victor entered.
Then I heard a sound from the kitchen.
I rushed in.
My mother sat at the table.
Alive.
Unhurt.
And furious.
“Valerie Marie Lane, why are there enormous men with guns in my hallway?”
I nearly collapsed.
“Mom.”
I threw my arms around her.
“What happened?”
“Someone came by asking for you.”
Sebastian stepped into the kitchen.
My mother stared.
Then looked at me.
Then back at him.
Even terrified, I knew exactly what calculation was happening in her head.
“Mom, not now.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Sebastian almost smiled.
“Mrs. Lane.”
“Elaine.”
“Sebastian Ward.”
“I know who you are.”
His smile disappeared.
That surprised him.
My mother pointed toward the table.
“The woman left that.”
A photograph lay beside her coffee mug.
I picked it up.
It showed me at approximately six years old standing outside our old apartment in Astoria.
Beside me was my father.
And beside my father was Evelyn Cross.
I stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
My father had been an insurance adjuster.
He had never worked for the Wards.
At least, that was what I had always believed.
My mother closed her eyes.
“Valerie.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“There are things your father and I never told you.”
Sebastian went still.
My mother looked at him with a mixture of fear and resentment.
Then she looked back at me.
“Your father didn’t meet Evelyn Cross through insurance.”
My voice barely worked.
“Then how?”
“He worked for Sebastian’s father.”
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
“No.”
“For seven years.”
“What did he do?”
My mother’s eyes filled with tears.
“He kept records.”
Sebastian’s face changed.
I understood before anyone explained.
My father had been dead for sixteen years.
A supposedly ordinary man killed when another vehicle ran a red light on Northern Boulevard.
I had been twelve.
The driver had never been found.
“What records?”
My mother stood slowly.
“Records Richard Ward never knew existed.”
Sebastian’s voice was almost a whisper.
“Elaine.”
She looked at him.
“Your father had people killed to find them.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
I stared at my mother.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I swear I don’t.”
“Then why is someone coming after me?”
“Because your father left one thing behind.”
She walked to a cabinet and removed an old recipe tin I had seen a thousand times.
From beneath faded index cards, she pulled a brass key.
She placed it in my palm.
A number was engraved into it.
“What does this open?”
My mother looked toward Sebastian.
“I’ve spent sixteen years praying Valerie would never have to find out.”
“Mom.”
Her voice broke.
“A safe-deposit box.”
Sebastian stared at the key.
“Which bank?”
“That’s what her father refused to tell me.”
I looked at the number again.
Three digits.
Then I remembered something.
My father used to take me to the New York Public Library.
We always used the same locker when we visited an exhibit.
Locker 317.
I had thought it was a game.
I looked at Sebastian.
He saw the realization in my face.
“What?”
“I think I know where he hid the bank information.”
And somewhere outside the house, a car engine started.
Victor rushed toward the window.
May you like
A black sedan tore away from the curb.
Someone had been watching us.
