Chapter 2 - The Eighteen-Million-Dollar LieRoman took the burner phone from Audrey.
He stared at the dead screen.
“He’s lying.”
Audrey folded her arms.
“You’ve known him as a criminal for what? A few weeks?”
“Seven months.”
“I’ve known him for nine years.”
Roman looked at her.
“And at three seventeen this afternoon, where did nine years get you?”
The words hit harder than he probably intended.
Audrey’s face changed.
Roman noticed immediately.
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No. You shouldn’t have.”
She turned away.
Roman didn’t apologize again.
Somehow, that was better.
Audrey focused on the papers covering the desk.
“You said your company invested.”
“Vale Holdings wired two million to Harbor Meridian for the first phase of Northpoint.”
“And somebody inside your company approved the remaining sixteen?”
“That transfer was scheduled for Friday.”
“So it hasn’t happened.”
“No.”
“Then why did David say eighteen million was already inside your company?”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“I don’t know.”
Audrey opened another binder.
Banking records.
Vendor schedules.
Subcontractors.
She scanned names until one stopped her.
Sloane Maritime Consulting.
She pointed.
“You know them?”
Roman’s expression gave him away.
“Victor Sloane.”
“Who is Victor Sloane?”
“A man who has spent fifteen years trying to own everything between Baltimore and Norfolk that my family owns.”
“Competitor?”
“Sometimes.”
“Enemy?”
“Usually.”
Audrey sighed.
“Wonderful.”
Roman reached for the binder.
She pulled it away.
“You wanted my help.”
“I wanted you to identify your husband’s work.”
“I’m doing that.”
“You’re also reading things you may regret knowing.”
“Today I learned my husband has been sleeping with his twenty-four-year-old coworker, forged my signature, stole two million dollars and built a secret office where he practiced copying my handwriting. My standards for regrettable information have shifted.”
One of Roman’s men coughed to hide what might have been a laugh.
Roman glanced at him.
The man became instantly fascinated by the ceiling.
Audrey continued studying the paperwork.
Then she found something worse.
A site photograph.
Pier 19.
Taken six weeks earlier.
Three men stood near a loading bay.
David was one.
Victor Sloane was presumably another.
The third man made Roman take the photograph out of Audrey’s hand.
For the first time, she saw genuine shock on his face.
“You know him.”
Roman didn’t answer.
“Roman.”
“My cousin.”
“Name?”
“Marcus Vale.”
Audrey stared at him.
Roman’s hand tightened around the photograph.
“Marcus runs operations for Vale Freight.”
“So David was meeting your enemy and your cousin.”
“Yes.”
“Does Marcus approve investments?”
Roman looked toward his security men.
Neither spoke.
Finally Roman said, “He can.”
Audrey understood.
The threat had changed.
This wasn’t David stealing from Roman.
It was somebody inside Roman’s organization helping him.
Audrey looked back at the wall of forged signatures.
“And they planned to put my name on everything.”
Roman’s gaze moved to her.
“Yes.”
The word was quiet.
Audrey swallowed.
“What happens if Northpoint fails?”
“Financially?”
“Structurally.”
Roman watched her carefully.
Audrey lifted the engineering report.
“This document certifies pilings I never inspected. If something goes wrong—a deck failure, a support collapse, anything—the investigation comes directly to me.”
“You’d prove it was forged.”
“After somebody gets hurt?”
Roman said nothing.
Audrey gathered the plans.
“I need to see the site.”
“No.”
She turned.
“You came to my house because you wanted help.”
“I didn’t ask you to walk through a property connected to Sloane.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
The words came too quickly.
Both noticed.
Roman’s expression closed.
Audrey studied him.
“You met me three hours ago.”
“Your husband put your name on documents tied to people who kill to protect money. Whether I like you is irrelevant.”
“Didn’t say you liked me.”
Roman looked irritated.
Good.
For some reason, Audrey enjoyed that.
Then his phone rang.
One of his men answered.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
Roman turned.
“What?”
“Chloe Mercer just walked into Mercy Hospital.”
Audrey’s stomach twisted.
“Why?”
The man listened.
“Broken wrist. Facial bruising.”
Audrey went still.
Roman looked at her.
“She says David Hayes did it.”
Chloe looked smaller in the hospital bed.
Without expensive makeup, curled hair and Audrey’s white duvet wrapped around her, she seemed less like the woman who destroyed a marriage and more like what she actually was.
Twenty-four.
Scared.
Audrey stood in the doorway.
Chloe saw her.
Her eyes filled immediately.
“Audrey.”
Roman remained outside with his men.
Audrey walked in alone.
“You have thirty seconds before I decide I shouldn’t be here.”
Chloe wiped her face.
“I didn’t know he was stealing from you.”
“That sentence has too many possible meanings.”
“The money. Your money.”
Audrey froze.
“What money?”
Chloe started crying.
“David said you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you were selling your grandmother’s property.”
Audrey felt the room tilt.
Her grandmother had died eighteen months earlier.
She had left Audrey a small apartment building in Annapolis.
Audrey had never sold it.
“Explain.”
“David had documents. He said you were refinancing everything to invest with him.”
“How much?”
Chloe’s silence answered first.
“How much, Chloe?”
“Six hundred and forty thousand.”
Audrey closed her eyes.
Her inheritance.
Her savings.
Six years of marriage.
David hadn’t only stolen from Roman.
He had stolen from her.
“Why did he hurt you?”
Chloe looked at the doorway.
“Because I found this.”
She reached beneath the blanket and produced a small flash drive.
Audrey didn’t take it.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know everything.”
“What do you know?”
Chloe whispered, “David has been using my login credentials at the firm. He told me it was because senior management wouldn’t approve one of his deals.”
“And you believed him?”
“I loved him.”
Audrey laughed without humor.
“Yes. Apparently that causes widespread stupidity.”
Chloe flinched.
Audrey immediately regretted it.
Not because Chloe was innocent.
She wasn’t.
But David was the common denominator.
“What’s on the drive?”
“I copied files from his laptop.”
“When?”
“This afternoon. After you came home.”
Audrey stared at her.
“You went with him?”
“No. He told me to meet him at a hotel near the airport. He was different. Panicking. He kept making calls. I heard him say Roman’s name. Then Marcus. Then he said something about Friday.”
“What about Friday?”
Chloe shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Why copy the files?”
“Because I realized I was disposable.”
Her voice cracked.
“He had two passports. One wasn’t in his name.”
Audrey’s chest tightened.
“What name?”
“Daniel Hart.”
David’s middle name was Daniel.
Chloe continued.
“There was also a passport for a woman.”
Audrey already knew she would hate the answer.
“What name?”
“Anna Hart.”
Audrey’s legal first name was Audrey Anne.
Her photograph was apparently attached.
Roman entered the room.
Chloe shrank back.
“You’re Roman Vale.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know anything about your money.”
“I didn’t ask.”
Audrey held out her hand.
Chloe gave her the flash drive.
Roman stopped her before she could pocket it.
“We scan it on an isolated machine.”
Audrey looked at him.
“You really do live like this.”
“Unfortunately.”
An hour later they were inside a private office at Mercy Hospital while one of Roman’s security specialists opened the files.
Spreadsheets.
Emails.
Photographs.
Wire-transfer instructions.
And one video.
The date on the recording was five weeks earlier.
David sat inside a restaurant booth.
Across from him was Marcus Vale.
The sound was poor, but several sentences came through clearly.
Marcus leaned forward.
“Once the final sixteen clears, Sloane gets his share.”
David asked, “And Audrey?”
Marcus smiled.
“She signed everything.”
David hesitated.
“She didn’t.”
Marcus’s smile disappeared.
“Then make sure the world believes she did.”
Audrey stopped breathing.
The video continued.
David looked nervous.
“And Roman?”
Marcus leaned back.
“Roman won’t survive opening night.”
The screen froze.
Nobody spoke.
Audrey slowly turned toward Roman.
“Opening night is twelve days away.”
Roman’s expression had become completely unreadable.
“Yes.”
“And the project plans say I certified the structure.”
“Yes.”
Audrey finally understood.
David hadn’t merely forged her name to steal money.
May you like
Someone intended to kill Roman Vale.
And when the investigation began, they planned to make Audrey Hayes responsible.
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