Chapter 3 - Twelve Million Dollars
I called Daniel seventeen times.
He answered on the eighteenth.
"Give me my laptop."
"You humiliated me in front of everyone," he said.
I almost laughed.
"You locked me in a cage."
"Because you were making accusations you didn't understand."
"Twelve million dollars is not difficult to understand."
Silence.
That silence was the first honest thing he had given me all day.
"Where are you?" I asked.
"Go home, Mara. Sleep. Tomorrow you'll realize how unstable this looked."
The call ended.
Tessa traced nothing useful. Daniel had shut off location sharing and driven beyond the estate cameras.
Dad poured two glasses of water and forgot to drink his.
"What did Adrian find?"
I opened the backup folder on my phone.
Three companies had billed Whitmore Infrastructure for emergency consulting, site remediation, and overseas equipment inspections.
Harbor North Advisory.
Everett Field Partners.
R&M Strategic.
Different names. Same mailbox in Delaware.
Adrian believed all three were controlled by one person.
Marcus Reed.
My father dropped his glass.
It broke against the rug.
"You know him."
Dad stared at the water spreading between his shoes.
"I knew him."
"Past tense?"
"That is what I wanted to believe."
He walked to the fireplace and gripped the mantel.
"Twenty years ago, Whitmore Holdings was weeks from collapse. Your mother was sick. Banks were pulling credit. I made decisions I thought I could bury once the company survived."
"What kind of decisions?"
He looked at me.
"Marcus Reed handled problems for people who could afford not to ask how."
A knock came at the door.
Tessa entered carrying a courier envelope.
"This was delivered to the gate for Mara. No return address."
Inside was a single photograph.
Adrian Vale stood beside a black SUV, looking over his shoulder.
The date stamp was from nine days ago.
Someone had written on the back in red ink.
STOP DIGGING OR HE STAYS MISSING.
May you like
Underneath was a second line.
ASK ELLIOT ABOUT 2009.
