Chapter 1 - The Debt Had Her Name on It“Then what do you want?”
Roman Vale looked at Audrey through the narrow opening of the chained door.
“You.”
Audrey’s fingers tightened around the forged contract.
Roman must have noticed the change in her expression because he added, calmly, “Not the way you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything good.”
“I want you to help me find your husband.”
Audrey stared at him.
“You have two men standing beside an SUV, enough money to buy half this neighborhood, and a reputation that apparently terrifies prosecutors. Why would you need me?”
“Because David planned for me to look everywhere except the one place he actually left clues.”
“And where is that?”
Roman’s gray eyes held hers.
“With his wife.”
Audrey almost slammed the door.
Instead she looked down at the document again.
Her forged signature sat at the bottom beneath a paragraph she had never read, guaranteeing a two-million-dollar investment made through a company called Harbor Meridian Development.
The property address caught her attention.
Pier 19.
Baltimore Harbor.
Audrey frowned.
She knew Pier 19.
Not socially.
Professionally.
Three years earlier, her engineering firm had evaluated a redevelopment proposal two piers north of it.
“You said David invented real-estate developments.”
“He sold me one.”
“Why would you give my husband two million dollars?”
“I didn’t.”
Audrey looked up.
Roman’s expression hadn’t changed.
“My company did.”
“That sounds like the same thing.”
“It isn’t.”
Something in his tone told her there were distinctions in Roman Vale’s world that ordinary people survived by understanding.
Audrey glanced toward the driveway.
The two men near the SUV weren’t watching her.
They were watching the street.
That bothered her.
“Is someone following you?”
Roman said nothing.
Audrey’s stomach tightened.
“Mr. Vale.”
“Open the door.”
“No.”
“Audrey.”
It was the first time he had used her first name.
She hated how controlled his voice remained.
“Why?”
“Because there’s a sedan parked across the intersection that has passed your house three times since I arrived.”
Her heartbeat changed.
Audrey looked toward the darkened living room window.
“Maybe they live here.”
“They don’t.”
“How do you know?”
“One of my men photographed the license plate in October outside a warehouse where somebody tried to kill me.”
Silence.
Rain tapped the porch roof.
Audrey stared at Roman.
“You brought them here?”
“I was followed after I crossed Charles Street. We lost one vehicle. Apparently not both.”
“You need to leave.”
“I agree.”
“Good.”
“You’re coming with me.”
Audrey laughed once.
“No.”
“Your husband disappeared with money belonging to people considerably less patient than I am.”
“You’re not exactly making yourself sound comforting.”
“I’m not trying to comfort you.”
“Clearly.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to understand what David did.”
Audrey wanted to tell him that her day had already reached maximum insanity.
Then something moved across the street.
A brief shape.
A car door?
Roman’s eyes shifted past Audrey.
His entire body changed.
It was subtle.
One second he was standing almost casually beneath the porch light.
The next second there was nothing casual about him.
“Turn off the hallway light.”
“What?”
“Now.”
Audrey reached behind her and flipped the switch.
Darkness swallowed the foyer.
Roman raised one hand toward the men near the SUV.
They reacted immediately.
Then Audrey heard the sound.
Glass breaking.
Not near her.
Upstairs.
Her bedroom.
She flinched.
Roman pushed the door.
The chain caught.
“Open it.”
Audrey froze.
Another crash came from the second floor.
Someone was inside.
Her mind struggled to process the impossibility.
She had locked the back door.
The windows were—
The basement.
David.
David knew the old laundry-window latch never seated properly in cold weather.
“Audrey.”
Roman’s voice sharpened.
She released the chain.
He entered instantly.
One of his men came through behind him.
The second remained outside.
Roman pulled Audrey behind the wall beside the staircase.
“Stay here.”
“This is my house.”
“And somebody is upstairs in it.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
Roman moved toward the stairs.
Audrey grabbed his sleeve.
He looked at her hand.
Then at her.
“There are original structural drawings in my office upstairs,” she whispered. “The hallway floor creaks beside the linen closet. If they came through the basement, they’ll come down the back stairs, not these.”
Roman stared at her for half a second.
Then nodded.
“Where’s the office?”
“Second floor, left.”
“You stay behind me.”
“Thought you said I wasn’t coming.”
“I’ve revised my position.”
They climbed.
Halfway up, Audrey heard a drawer slam.
Her office.
Anger burned through the fear.
Somebody had broken into her home on the same day her husband had destroyed their marriage.
She had reached her limit for being invaded.
Roman entered the upstairs hall first.
His man followed.
Audrey remained several feet back.
A shadow moved inside her office.
Roman crossed the hall.
There was a crash.
A man burst from the doorway.
Everything happened quickly.
Roman’s security man intercepted him.
The stranger slammed into the wall, twisted free and ran toward the rear stairs.
Roman followed.
Audrey heard footsteps descend.
A back door opened.
Then silence.
Thirty seconds later Roman returned.
Alone.
“He got out.”
“Wonderful.”
“He won’t get far.”
Audrey pushed past him into her office.
Every drawer had been opened.
Files covered the floor.
Her external drives had been pulled from the desk.
But her laptop remained.
So did her jewelry box in the bedroom.
“They weren’t stealing,” Audrey whispered.
“No.”
“They were looking.”
Roman leaned against the doorway.
“For what?”
Audrey scanned the room.
Then stopped.
The bookshelf.
One framed photograph was crooked.
Their fifth anniversary.
David had insisted on placing it there.
Audrey crossed the room and lifted it.
Nothing.
She almost set it down.
Then she noticed four faint scrape marks on the wall.
She pulled the bookshelf forward.
Behind it was a small rectangular opening cut into the drywall.
Audrey stared.
She had renovated this room herself.
That opening had not existed then.
Inside was a black envelope.
Her name was written across it.
AUDREY.
David’s handwriting.
Roman stepped closer.
“You didn’t know about this?”
“No.”
She opened the envelope.
A brass key fell into her palm.
Then a folded sheet of paper.
Audrey unfolded it.
There were only three sentences.
Audrey,
If Roman Vale comes to the house, I’m already gone.
Don’t believe him.
And whatever you do, don’t let him find locker 317.
Audrey slowly raised her eyes.
Roman was standing directly in front of her.
He had read every word.
For the first time since arriving at her door, Roman Vale smiled.
It wasn’t amusement.
It was confirmation.
“Your husband,” he said softly, “just told us exactly where to go.”
Locker 317 was located inside a twenty-four-hour storage facility less than four miles from the harbor.
Audrey refused to leave the key with Roman.
Roman refused to let Audrey return home.
They compromised in the least reasonable way possible.
At 1:08 a.m., Audrey sat in the back of Roman’s SUV wearing the same charcoal coat she had worn when she caught David cheating.
“This is insane.”
Roman sat beside her.
“Probably.”
“I should call the police.”
“You can.”
Audrey looked at him.
“But?”
“Before you do, remember your signature is attached to two million dollars that vanished yesterday.”
“I can prove it’s forged.”
“Eventually.”
“And you can prove David took it.”
“Eventually.”
She hated that answer.
Roman continued.
“Until then, whoever helped him believes you may know where the money went.”
Audrey looked out the window.
Baltimore slid past in wet streaks of amber light.
“Who helped him?”
“That is the question.”
The storage facility was almost empty.
Roman’s men checked the corridor first.
Audrey inserted the key into locker 317.
The door rolled upward.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
There were no suitcases.
No paintings.
No boxes of stolen cash.
There was a drafting table.
Three computer monitors.
Stacks of contracts.
Architectural drawings.
A portable document scanner.
And taped to the wall were dozens of pages containing Audrey’s signature.
Her real signature.
Copied from birthday cards.
Tax documents.
Mortgage paperwork.
Engineering approvals.
Hundreds of practice attempts appeared beneath them.
David had been learning to become her.
Audrey walked inside slowly.
“Oh my God.”
Roman stood behind her.
On the desk sat a folder labeled NORTHPOINT.
Audrey opened it.
Inside were engineering reports stamped with her professional seal.
She stopped breathing.
“I didn’t write these.”
Roman moved beside her.
“What are they?”
“Structural certifications.”
“For?”
Audrey turned pages faster.
Pier supports.
Load calculations.
Concrete inspections.
A warehouse redevelopment.
Her stomach dropped.
“These documents say I inspected Pier 19.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
She reached the final page.
The construction schedule was attached.
The project’s official opening was twelve days away.
More disturbing was the estimated project value.
Not two million.
Not even close.
Audrey looked at Roman.
“Your missing two million was a deposit.”
His face hardened.
“How much?”
She turned the document toward him.
Eighteen million dollars.
Before Roman could respond, a phone began ringing somewhere inside the storage unit.
Audrey searched until she found a cheap black burner beneath the drafting table.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
She answered.
“Hello?”
David’s voice came through.
“Audrey?”
Her body went rigid.
“David.”
Roman stepped closer.
David was breathing hard.
“You found the locker.”
“You forged my engineering seal.”
“I can explain.”
“You forged my signature hundreds of times.”
“Audrey, listen to me. You need to get away from Roman.”
She looked at the man standing beside her.
“Why?”
“Because the two million isn’t what he wants.”
“What does he want?”
Silence.
Then David whispered:
“The eighteen million isn’t missing.”
Audrey’s pulse jumped.
“Then where is it?”
David took a breath.
“It’s inside Roman Vale’s company.”
May you like
The line went dead.
And when Audrey looked at Roman, the mafia boss wasn’t smiling anymore.
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