Chapter 2 - The Name Buried in the System
Khloe did not sleep.
She sat on the edge of the guest-room bed until nearly dawn, Arthur Pendleton's financial sheet resting beside her like something poisonous.
Nathan Higgins.
Her father.
The name should not have existed anywhere inside Moretti Maritime.
Nathan had worked for the New York Harbor Compliance Office.
That was what Khloe's mother had always told her.
He inspected cargo records.
He hated neckties.
He burned pancakes every Sunday morning.
He sang old Bruce Springsteen songs badly enough that neighbors once complained.
He had died when another vehicle crossed the center line during a rainstorm.
Khloe remembered the funeral.
She remembered her mother's black dress.
She remembered staring at the closed coffin and wondering why adults kept saying her father was inside when nobody would let her see him.
The payment occurred four months later.
Two hundred fifty thousand dollars.
N.H.-17.
Khloe remembered the account numbers because she remembered numbers.
That was the problem.
Once numbers entered her mind, they rarely left.
When she was seven, her father sometimes brought files home.
He would spread documents across the kitchen table and tell Khloe they were boring grown-up homework.
She remembered blue folders.
Port numbers.
Shipping weights.
And three account sequences.
The same sequences now printed on Arthur Pendleton's recovered ledger.
At six in the morning Khloe found Lorenzo in the estate gym.
He was striking a heavy bag.
Bare fists.
No gloves.
His shirt clung to his back.
A tattoo stretched across his shoulder.
Khloe stood in the doorway.
"You knew him."
Lorenzo stopped punching.
He turned.
"Good morning."
"Don't good-morning me."
He noticed the document in her hand.
"You took that from my study."
"You murdered the man who owned it. I figured paperwork theft wasn't your biggest ethical concern."
Something almost resembling approval moved across Lorenzo's face.
Four days ago Khloe would have apologized for the sentence.
She no longer did.
"Did you know my father?"
"I was twenty-two when he died."
"That isn't an answer."
"No."
Lorenzo took a towel.
"I didn't know Nathan Higgins."
"But somebody here did."
"Apparently."
"Who?"
"We'll find out."
Khloe laughed sharply.
"We?"
"You are not investigating this alone."
"I'm not investigating anything with a man who throws accountants into rivers."
"Arthur wasn't thrown."
Khloe stared.
Lorenzo reconsidered.
"That detail isn't helpful."
"No. It really isn't."
She held up the document.
"My father was paid after he was dead."
"Or someone used his identity."
"Why?"
"To hide money."
"Whose money?"
"That's what we'll determine."
Khloe crossed her arms.
"How?"
Lorenzo walked past her.
"By returning to the tower."
The Moretti Tower security staff doubled before Khloe's arrival.
She entered through a private garage.
Mateo met them beside the elevator.
His eyes moved between Khloe and Lorenzo.
"You two have the look."
Khloe frowned.
"What look?"
"The one people have before I spend all day cleaning up problems."
Lorenzo handed him the ledger.
Mateo read the payment entry.
His expression changed.
"Nathan Higgins?"
"You know the name?" Khloe asked.
Mateo hesitated.
Khloe immediately noticed.
"You do."
"I've heard it."
"Where?"
Mateo looked at Lorenzo.
Khloe slapped the elevator stop button.
The car jerked to a halt.
Both men stared at her.
"No."
She pointed between them.
"I have spent a week being shot at, kidnapped by my employer—"
"Protected."
"Against my will."
"Protected."
"Whatever. I've watched people disappear, been moved into a fortress, and discovered my dead father's name in a criminal financial record. Nobody is doing that mysterious male silence thing anymore."
Mateo rubbed his jaw.
"I like her."
Lorenzo did not.
"Start the elevator."
"No."
"Khloe."
"No."
Mateo sighed.
"Nathan Higgins investigated Lorenzo's father."
Khloe stopped breathing.
Mateo continued.
"Seventeen years ago."
"Why?"
"Cargo diversion."
"What kind?"
"Everything."
Lorenzo answered now.
"My father controlled the company differently."
Khloe looked at him.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning he did business with people I no longer do business with."
That was carefully worded.
Khloe caught it.
"What did my father discover?"
"We don't know."
"Convenient."
"My father died before I took control."
"How?"
"Heart attack."
Mateo looked away.
Khloe noticed that too.
"And you don't believe that."
Lorenzo said nothing.
The elevator resumed moving.
Eighty-eight floors later, Khloe marched directly toward the records department.
Lorenzo followed.
Mateo followed Lorenzo.
Three security men followed Mateo.
The procession looked absurd.
Khloe did not care.
Moretti Maritime had digitized most corporate records twelve years earlier, but older personnel and compliance files remained archived in a restricted storage system.
Nathan Higgins appeared in exactly eleven documents.
Nine were routine port inspection reports.
One was an internal complaint from Lorenzo's father, Salvatore Moretti, accusing Nathan of harassment.
The final record was different.
Khloe opened it.
AUTHORIZED CONSULTANT PAYMENT.
$250,000.
Consultant: Nathan Higgins.
Purpose: Maritime efficiency assessment.
Date: four months after Nathan's death.
Approved by:
V. Moretti.
Khloe read the signature twice.
"Who is V. Moretti?"
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Mateo said, "Vittorio."
Lorenzo's uncle.
Vittorio Moretti had helped build the family's shipping empire.
He had also effectively raised Lorenzo after Salvatore's death.
At sixty-eight, he had retired from daily operations and lived between Palm Beach, Manhattan, and a vineyard in Tuscany.
He remained chairman emeritus.
His portrait hung in the Moretti Tower boardroom.
Khloe looked at Lorenzo.
"Your uncle paid my dead father."
"Someone using your father's identity."
"You keep correcting that."
"Because words matter."
"So does murder."
His jaw tightened.
Before either could continue, Khloe noticed another file.
It was hidden beneath an incorrect index classification.
She clicked.
The screen displayed a personnel access history.
One employee had opened Nathan Higgins' archived records repeatedly during the previous month.
Isabella Rosi.
Khloe stared at the name.
"Who's Isabella?"
Mateo became motionless.
Lorenzo closed the laptop.
Too fast.
Khloe looked at him.
"Open it."
"No."
"Lorenzo."
"This is finished for today."
"Why?"
"Because I said so."
Khloe stood.
"Who is Isabella Rosi?"
Mateo watched Lorenzo.
Lorenzo's expression became cold again.
The wall had returned.
Khloe recognized it now.
The face he used whenever truth became dangerous.
"She was my previous executive assistant."
"Where is she?"
"Europe."
Khloe remembered the empty desk.
The strange jokes.
The turnover.
Arthur's death.
Her stomach tightened.
"Is she?"
Lorenzo looked directly at her.
"Yes."
Khloe knew he was lying.
She also knew something else.
Isabella had searched for Nathan Higgins.
Repeatedly.
Then disappeared.
By lunchtime Khloe was sitting at her desk pretending to reconcile invoices.
In reality, she was remembering.
Isabella Rosi.
The name bothered her.
Not because it was familiar.
Because a number connected to it.
Khloe closed her eyes.
She pictured the application confirmation email she had received after applying for the Moretti position.
The sender address had contained an automated identification code.
MRG-HR-IR4408.
At the time she had assumed it meant internal recruiting.
IR.
Isabella Rosi.
Khloe opened her email.
The original message remained.
She clicked the technical details.
The job advertisement had not been posted by Human Resources.
It originated from an executive account.
I.ROSI.
Khloe's hands went cold.
Isabella had posted the listing.
Three days before she supposedly left for Europe.
The listing was strangely specific.
Applicant location preference: Queens.
Education preference: City University business administration graduates.
Keyword priority: Higgins.
Khloe whispered, "Oh my God."
The job had been designed to find her.
She stood so quickly that the chair rolled backward.
Lorenzo looked up.
"What?"
"She recruited me."
"Who?"
"Isabella."
He crossed the room.
Khloe turned the screen.
"Your missing secretary created the job advertisement."
Lorenzo's face changed.
Mateo came inside.
He read the data.
"That's impossible."
"No," Khloe said. "It isn't."
Lorenzo leaned toward the screen.
"When?"
"Three days before she went to Europe."
Nobody corrected the phrase.
Khloe noticed.
She stepped backward.
"She's dead."
Lorenzo looked at her.
"You know she's dead."
"Khloe."
"Stop lying to me."
Mateo closed the office door.
Khloe's fear returned, but this time it was sharper.
Focused.
"Did you kill her?"
"No," Lorenzo said.
The answer came immediately.
Khloe studied him.
"Do you know who did?"
"No."
"But you know she didn't go to Europe."
Lorenzo remained silent.
Khloe's voice dropped.
"What happened?"
Mateo looked toward the windows.
Lorenzo finally spoke.
"Isabella disappeared eleven days ago."
"Why fake the vacation?"
"Because whoever removed her made it appear voluntary."
"And you didn't call police?"
Lorenzo gave her a look.
"Right. Stupid question."
"We searched privately."
"You thought she betrayed you."
"Initially."
"And now?"
Lorenzo looked at Nathan Higgins' record.
"Now I think she found something."
The three of them began reconstructing Isabella's final week.
She searched Nathan's records twenty-three times.
She accessed Arthur's accounting system.
She created the job advertisement targeting Khloe.
She requested historical construction permits connected to Moretti subsidiaries.
And six hours before disappearing, she entered Lorenzo's office while he was away.
Security footage showed her placing something beneath his secretary desk.
Mateo ordered the original desk brought from storage.
Workers returned with it forty minutes later.
Khloe examined every surface.
Nothing.
Mateo removed drawers.
Nothing.
Lorenzo turned the desk upside down.
Still nothing.
Then Khloe noticed one screw was newer than the others.
"That one."
Mateo removed the metal plate.
A flash drive dropped onto the carpet.
Nobody moved.
Khloe bent down.
Lorenzo caught her wrist.
"Gloves."
She looked at him.
"Right."
Mateo handled the drive.
The device was encrypted.
A single password prompt appeared.
Khloe tried Isabella's employee number.
Wrong.
Nathan Higgins' employee reference.
Wrong.
The number from Arthur's payment.
Wrong.
Three attempts remained before permanent deletion.
Lorenzo stopped her.
"Think."
Khloe closed her eyes.
Isabella recruited her.
Isabella studied her father.
The password was not designed for Lorenzo.
It was designed for Khloe.
Something only Khloe might recognize.
She remembered the advertisement.
$128,417 salary.
An oddly precise amount.
Khloe had laughed when she saw it.
Why not $128,000?
She typed 128417.
The drive opened.
Inside were seventeen files.
Photographs.
Accounts.
Audio recordings.
And one video.
ISABELLA_FINAL.
Lorenzo played it.
Isabella appeared on screen.
She looked exhausted.
Terrified.
"If you're watching this, something probably happened to me."
Khloe covered her mouth.
Isabella continued.
"Lorenzo, I know you think loyalty means silence. You're wrong. Silence is how this started."
She looked away from the camera.
"Arthur Pendleton isn't the source. He's a participant."
Lorenzo's eyes hardened.
"There is someone above him."
The video flickered.
"I found payments going back seventeen years. Nathan Higgins discovered them first. They killed him for it."
Khloe stopped breathing.
The room seemed to tilt.
Isabella continued.
"Nathan hid evidence before he died. I don't know where. But his daughter might."
Khloe stared at the screen.
"I found Khloe Higgins through university records. I posted the position because I needed to speak to her without alerting anyone monitoring the archived files."
Khloe whispered, "She brought me here."
The woman on screen leaned closer.
"If I disappear before she arrives, protect her."
Lorenzo's face became unreadable.
"And don't trust anyone carrying the Moretti name."
The video ended.
Silence swallowed the room.
Mateo looked at Lorenzo.
Khloe wiped tears she had not realized were falling.
"My father was murdered."
Lorenzo did not deny it.
She looked at him.
"And Isabella knew."
"Yes."
"And somebody in your family killed them."
"We don't know that yet."
"She literally said don't trust anyone named Moretti."
"That includes me."
Khloe laughed through tears.
"At least one of us noticed."
Then the office phone rang.
Mateo answered.
His expression changed immediately.
He looked at Lorenzo.
"Your uncle is downstairs."
Khloe slowly turned toward the door.
Vittorio Moretti had not visited the eighty-eighth floor in almost eight months.
Yet less than an hour after Isabella's hidden drive had been opened, the retired patriarch had suddenly appeared without warning.
Lorenzo reached beneath his jacket.
"Nobody tells him what we found."
The elevator chimed outside.
A warm older voice filled the reception area.
"Where is this miraculous little secretary everyone keeps talking about?"
Khloe felt every hair on her arms rise.
May you like
Vittorio Moretti entered smiling.
And in his hand was the same brand of peppermint candy Arthur Pendleton used to give her.
