Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Red Dress
Everything happened too fast.
Catherine grabbed my arm and dragged me behind a stone column as another shot cracked through the church.
I heard footsteps.
A man shouted.
Then the front doors slammed open.
Ravi’s voice cut through the chaos.
“Diane!”
“I’m here!”
There were more shots.
I pressed both hands over my ears.
Catherine curled beside me, shaking.
The woman who had strutted through the gala in diamonds was gone.
This Catherine looked like someone who had spent years pretending she was not afraid of her own father.
Thirty seconds later, the church went quiet.
Ravi appeared around the column.
His tuxedo from the night before had been replaced by a dark coat, but his face was the same controlled mask.
Until he saw blood on my sleeve.
His expression changed instantly.
“Where are you hit?”
“I’m not.”
He crouched.
“The blood.”
I looked down.
Catherine’s hand was cut by flying glass.
“It’s hers.”
Ravi turned to Catherine.
She flinched.
He noticed.
So did I.
“Your father sent them?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“One of them used Elias’s name.”
Her face drained.
“Then my father and Elias are working together.”
Ravi’s jaw tightened.
A guard approached.
“Two ran. One is down. Alive.”
“Find out who hired him.”
The guard nodded.
Ravi looked back at me.
“Can you stand?”
“I think so.”
He offered his hand.
I took it.
His fingers closed around mine with surprising gentleness.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then Catherine laughed weakly.
“This is really how you two met?”
I released Ravi’s hand.
“He threatened me after I kissed him.”
“I asked who sent you.”
“You grabbed my wrist.”
“You had just assaulted me with lipstick.”
Catherine blinked.
Then, impossibly, she started laughing.
I laughed too.
It was probably shock.
Ravi looked offended by both of us.
Ten minutes later, we were in the back of an armored SUV.
Catherine’s hand was wrapped in gauze.
The recorder sat between us like a bomb.
“Play it,” I said.
Ravi looked at me.
“You do not have to hear this now.”
“Yes, I do.”
Catherine pressed the button.
Static filled the car.
Then Victor Voss’s voice came through.
I had heard him give speeches on television.
He always sounded warm.
Patriotic.
Concerned.
On the recording, he sounded bored.
“…Harper should have understood that taking records makes him a liability.”
Another man spoke.
“Greedy still thinks the crash was weather.”
Victor laughed.
“For now.”
The second man asked, “What about the daughters?”
My entire body went rigid.
Victor answered.
“The older one will spend the next few years paying bills. The younger one is a child. Keep them moving and keep them poor. If Daniel left instructions, desperation will bury them faster than a grave.”
The recording stopped.
I stared straight ahead.
No one spoke.
Then I said, “Play it again.”
Ravi turned toward me.
“Diane.”
“Again.”
Catherine played it.
I listened to the man who killed my parents describe my life like a financial strategy.
Keep them moving.
Keep them poor.
Desperation will bury them.
When it ended, I was no longer crying.
I was furious.
“Who is the other voice?” I asked.
Ravi’s eyes were hard.
“Elias.”
I nodded slowly.
“So we have them.”
“Not yet.”
I turned on him.
“What do you mean, not yet?”
“A recording can be challenged. We need the original file, chain of custody, supporting records, and independent evidence.”
Catherine looked at him.
“You sound like a prosecutor.”
“I have paid enough prosecutors to know how they think.”
I stared at him.
He glanced at me.
“That was a joke.”
“It was a terrible joke.”
“I am not good at them.”
“That is becoming clear.”
Catherine looked between us again.
“You’re both very strange.”
Back at the house, Sadi ran into me so hard I nearly fell.
“Where were you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Mrs. Alvarez went home, and the giant man downstairs won’t tell me anything.”
The giant man downstairs was Tomas, Ravi’s head of security.
“He’s supposed to be scary.”
“He gave me cookies.”
“Tomas!” Ravi called.
From downstairs came, “They were oatmeal!”
Sadi whispered, “They were chocolate chip.”
For the first time in forty-eight hours, I felt almost normal.
Then Catherine walked in.
Sadi looked at her.
“You’re the red dress lady.”
Catherine stopped.
“How do you know that?”
“I saw a video online.”
My soul left my body.
“What video?”
Sadi pulled out her tablet.
Someone had posted the gala kiss.
The caption read:
BROKE WAITRESS KISSES CHICAGO’S MOST DANGEROUS MAN FOR CASH—THEN HE STOPS THE PARTY.
It had 3.2 million views.
I sat down.
“No.”
Sadi watched it again.
“You look pretty.”
“I am moving to another country.”
Ravi took the tablet.
His eyes narrowed at the comments.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Give me that.”
He held it higher.
“You do not need to read strangers discussing your body.”
I stared at him.
“Give me the tablet.”
He handed it over.
My face was everywhere.
So was Ravi’s.
Half the comments thought I was insane.
The other half wanted to know if we were secretly dating.
One account had already made a slow-motion edit of the kiss.
I closed the app.
“I hate the internet.”
Catherine sank into a chair.
“This might help us.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
“Victor cannot quietly make you disappear now. Millions of people know your face.”
Ravi nodded.
“She’s right.”
I pointed at Catherine.
“You are not allowed to be right today.”
“I deserve that.”
Sadi looked confused.
“Is she bad?”
Catherine’s face changed.
She crouched in front of my sister.
“I did something mean to your sister because I was trying to help her in a stupid way.”
Sadi considered that.
“Did you say sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t do it again.”
Catherine’s eyes filled.
“I won’t.”
Sadi walked away toward the kitchen.
Catherine stared after her.
Catherine did not move after Sadi left.
She kept staring at the doorway.
Then she reached into her bag and placed her phone on the table.
“There is something else you should see.”
I was already exhausted by that sentence.
“What now?”
She opened a photograph.
It had been taken from across a street.
I was in it.
So was Sadi.
We were walking out of a discount grocery store carrying two plastic bags between us. I remembered the day because one of the bags had ripped halfway home, spilling cans across the sidewalk.
The photograph was dated five months earlier.
My stomach tightened.
“My father had this in his desk,” Catherine said.
I swiped to the next image.
Me leaving the diner where I worked.
Next.
Sadi outside school.
Next.
Our apartment building.
Next.
Mrs. Alvarez carrying groceries upstairs.
I pushed the phone away.
“Stop.”
Ravi’s face had gone absolutely still.
“How long was Victor watching them?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you found the file three weeks ago.”
“I did.”
“What was it labeled?”
Catherine hesitated.
“Harper contingency.”
I felt sick.
Contingency.
That was what Victor Voss had called two children whose parents he murdered.
Not daughters.
Not people.
A contingency.
Catherine kept talking quickly, as if she knew stopping would make it harder.
“There was a note about the gala staffing company. My father knew you had been assigned to the Grand Meridian that night. He also knew Ravi would be there.”
I looked at her.
“So you really did choose me on purpose.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew I needed money?”
Her face crumpled slightly.
“I knew enough. Your rent delinquency was in the file. So was the dental estimate.”
Humiliation burned through me.
A stranger had known the price of my sister’s teeth.
Catherine whispered, “I thought if I offered enough, you would do something Ravi could not ignore.”
“You used my desperation.”
“Yes.”
The honesty made it worse.
Then she added, “And I am ashamed of that.”
I stood and walked to the window.
Behind me, Ravi said, “Why a kiss?”
Catherine gave a bleak laugh.
“Because you hate being touched by strangers.”
I turned.
Ravi looked irritated.
“That is common knowledge?”
“In our circles? Yes.”
“That is absurd.”
“You once fired a banker for putting his hand on your shoulder.”
“He was sweating on me.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
Catherine looked relieved for half a second.
Then I faced her again.
“You could have trusted me with the truth.”
“I did not know you.”
“You knew enough to investigate my rent.”
“That was my father’s investigation.”
“And you used it.”
“Yes.”
I let the silence sit.
Finally, I said, “Helping me does not erase what you did.”
“I know.”
“But it matters that you are telling the truth now.”
Catherine nodded, eyes wet.
That was the first moment I understood that forgiveness was not a door you opened once.
Sometimes it was a hallway.
And Catherine had only taken the first step.
“My mother used to talk to me like that.”
Ravi’s expression softened by half an inch.
That night, after Sadi fell asleep, Catherine told us everything.
Her mother, Evelyn Voss, had discovered irregular charity accounts seven years earlier. She secretly contacted Daniel Harper, whose name she found in an old audit file.
Together, they started tracing Victor’s hidden network.
Evelyn died before they finished.
My father continued alone.
That explained why his work became more secretive.
It also explained why he refused to stop even after my mother begged him to spend more time at home.
He was not chasing money.
He was trying to finish what a dead woman started.
Catherine slid a folder across the table.
“My mother kept copies in a storage unit under her maiden name. I found them last month.”
Inside were photos of Victor meeting Elias.
Shipping schedules.
Foundation transactions.
And a list of initials.
At the bottom was one word.
LANTERN.
Ravi leaned forward.
“There.”
Catherine pointed to an account number.
“Mom wrote that every payment to Elias eventually passed through Lantern.”
I looked at Ravi.
“Can we trace it?”
“We can try.”
Catherine shook her head.
“My father shut the account down after Mom died.”
“Then why keep the name?” I asked.
She hesitated.
“Because Lantern was not just an account.”
“What was it?”
Catherine swallowed.
“A person.”
Ravi went still.
“Who?”
Catherine looked directly at him.
“I think Lantern is your mother.”
The room became silent.
Ravi’s face emptied of emotion.
“My mother died when I was thirteen.”
Catherine pushed one photograph toward him.
A woman was getting into a black car outside a hotel in Geneva.
The photo was dated eight years ago.
Ravi stared at it.
His hands did not move.
May you like
But his breathing changed.
Catherine whispered, “Then someone lied to you too.”
