Chapter 2 - The Secret Behind the Locked Drawer
They left Cindy’s apartment through the rear stairwell before the police arrived.
Lucas had already called one of Andrew’s cleanup teams to erase the obvious signs of the gunfire, but Andrew refused to let anyone touch Cindy herself. He walked beside her through the rain with one hand hovering at the small of her back without actually making contact.
She looked fragile.
Not weak.
Fragile.
There was a difference.
At the bottom of the stairs, Cindy stopped.
“I can walk.”
“I know.”
“Then stop hovering.”
Andrew withdrew his hand.
Lucas glanced at him.
It was the first time in years he had seen Andrew willingly take an order from anyone.
They entered the SUV.
Cindy sat in the back.
Andrew took the front passenger seat while Lucas drove.
No one spoke for almost five minutes.
Finally Cindy said, “Where are we going?”
“My house.”
Her head snapped toward him.
“No.”
Andrew turned around.
“Why?”
“Because I shouldn’t be there.”
“That is exactly why you should be there.”
She looked toward the window.
“Andrew, you don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I can’t.”
His eyes hardened.
“You can.”
She shook her head.
“There are things you don’t know about me.”
“I gathered that when an armed man shot at my window because of you.”
Cindy flinched.
Andrew regretted the sharpness immediately.
He lowered his voice.
“I’m not blaming you.”
She looked down at her hands.
“Six years ago, my father disappeared.”
Andrew said nothing.
“My mother had already died. My sister was only nineteen. I was twenty.”
She swallowed.
“My father worked for your family.”
Lucas glanced into the mirror.
Andrew’s expression went still.
“What was his name?”
Cindy looked up.
“Thomas Stone.”
Lucas’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.
Andrew stared at her.
He knew that name.
Thomas Stone had been a bookkeeper in one of Carter Logistics’ older companies.
A man who disappeared after a financial investigation.
Andrew remembered hearing that Thomas had stolen money.
He also remembered his own father saying the matter had been handled.
“Your father stole from us.”
“That’s what I was told.”
Andrew frowned.
“You were told?”
“By my father.”
The sentence landed strangely.
Cindy leaned her head against the seat.
“He called me the night before he disappeared.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me never to trust the official story.”
Andrew looked at Lucas.
Lucas’s eyes narrowed.
“What official story?” Andrew asked.
“The one that said he ran away.”
Andrew said nothing.
Cindy continued.
“He told me someone inside the company was laundering money through shell corporations. He said he had proof. He said if anything happened to him, I had to protect my sister.”
“And you did?”
“Yes.”
“Where was the evidence?”
She closed her eyes.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
She opened them again.
“In your company.”
Andrew stared at her.
The SUV slowed as they approached a private entrance to one of his properties.
“What does that mean?”
“I took a job at Carter Logistics because I believed your company still had the files he talked about.”
Andrew’s expression darkened.
“You took this job to investigate me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“To find out who killed my father.”
The car came to a stop.
Nobody moved.
Andrew finally opened his door.
“Come inside.”
Cindy followed reluctantly.
The mansion was quiet.
Security staff watched from a distance, clearly surprised to see Andrew return with an injured woman at two in the morning.
He ignored them.
He took Cindy to a private sitting room.
A doctor arrived within minutes.
After cleaning her forehead and wrapping her wrist, the doctor concluded that her injuries were superficial.
David, however, had fractured his knee.
Andrew had him transported to a private holding facility.
He would not be leaving anytime soon.
When the doctor left, Andrew poured Cindy a glass of water.
She held it without drinking.
“Show me.”
“Show you what?”
“The evidence.”
Cindy stared at him.
“You don’t believe me.”
“I believe that someone attacked your apartment and knew about your father.”
“You think I’m a spy.”
“I think somebody has spent six years making sure you never found the truth.”
Her fingers tightened around the glass.
Finally she stood.
“I need my bag.”
“Already here.”
Lucas placed her handbag on the table.
Andrew frowned.
“You searched it?”
“Standard procedure.”
Cindy opened it.
Wallet.
Keys.
Makeup.
Phone.
A small envelope.
She froze.
Andrew noticed.
“What is that?”
She pulled out a photograph.
An old family picture.
Her father stood behind a teenage Cindy and her younger sister.
On the back, someone had written a date.
March 17, 2020.
Andrew took the photograph.
He looked at the date.
His eyes narrowed.
“That was the night your father disappeared.”
“Yes.”
He turned the photograph over again.
There was something odd about the ink.
Fresh.
He looked closer.
“This wasn’t written six years ago.”
Cindy stared.
“What?”
“The ink is too new.”
Lucas took the photograph.
He ran a gloved finger near the writing without touching it.
“He’s right.”
Andrew’s gaze moved to Cindy.
“Someone put this in your bag tonight.”
Her face went white.
That meant someone had been inside her apartment before the attack.
Someone had searched her belongings.
Someone had placed the photograph there.
And that someone knew exactly what would make her remember the past.
Andrew stood.
“Get the security footage from her building.”
Lucas nodded.
“We’re already pulling it.”
Andrew turned to Cindy.
“Where did you keep your father’s original records?”
She hesitated.
Then she whispered, “There’s a drawer in my apartment desk.”
“You checked it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Empty.”
Andrew looked at Lucas.
“Go back.”
Lucas left.
Ten minutes later, he returned carrying a small metal box.
“Hidden compartment.”
Cindy stared at it.
“I never knew that was there.”
Andrew placed it on the table.
The box required a key.
Cindy searched her purse again.
Then stopped.
She removed a thin silver chain from around her neck.
At the end hung a tiny antique key.
“My father gave me this when I was sixteen.”
Andrew inserted it.
The lock clicked.
Inside were three things.
A flash drive.
A folded document.
And a photograph of Andrew’s father standing beside Thomas Stone.
Andrew picked up the document.
His face changed as he read.
It was an internal transfer report.
Money had been moved through a sequence of companies during the final year of Andrew’s father’s leadership.
Millions.
But the signature authorizing the transfers was not his father’s.
It belonged to a man who still worked for Carter Logistics.
A man Andrew trusted.
Martin Hale.
Andrew’s chief financial officer.
Lucas slowly exhaled.
“That’s impossible.”
Andrew kept reading.
At the bottom of the page was another name.
Elias Carter.
Andrew’s uncle.
Dead for five years.
Cindy looked at him.
“Do you know him?”
Andrew did.
And suddenly memories began falling into place.
Elias had always hated Andrew.
He had wanted the syndicate.
But Andrew’s father had passed control to Andrew instead.
Elias left the family business shortly afterward.
Then he died in a supposed car accident.
Andrew had never investigated.
Now he wondered why.
His phone rang.
Martin Hale.
Andrew answered.
“Martin.”
“Andrew, I just heard there was an incident involving your assistant.”
“You heard quickly.”
A pause.
“Yes. Security informed me.”
“You weren’t scheduled to be notified.”
Another pause.
Andrew leaned against the desk.
“How did you know Cindy was at my apartment?”
Martin’s breathing changed.
“Your apartment?”
Andrew smiled coldly.
“I never said where she was.”
Silence.
Then Martin said, “We should speak in person.”
“No.”
Andrew looked at the document.
“You should come here.”
“I’m out of town.”
Andrew’s eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
Another pause.
“Boston.”
Lucas silently mouthed something.
He had checked Martin’s location.
The phone ping showed Manhattan.
Andrew knew.
“So you’re in Boston.”
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll have no trouble explaining why your phone is currently three blocks from my office.”
Martin hung up.
Andrew stared at the screen.
Cindy whispered, “He knows.”
Andrew looked at her.
“Who?”
“My father used to say the people responsible would never be the men standing in the shadows.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“They’d be the people everyone trusted.”
Andrew walked to the window.
The rain had softened to a steady drizzle.
He looked at the city below.
For years, he had believed he understood every enemy around him.
Now someone had attacked Cindy.
Someone had planted evidence.
And someone inside his own organization was connected to a six-year-old disappearance.
Andrew turned around.
“From this moment on, you stay here.”
Cindy shook her head.
“I have a sister.”
“We’ll bring her here.”
“You don’t understand. If they come after her—”
“They won’t.”
“How can you promise that?”
Andrew walked closer.
“Because anyone who tries will have to get through me first.”
For one second, neither moved.
Something unfamiliar passed between them.
Trust.
Fear.
Something dangerously close to affection.
Cindy looked away.
Andrew did too.
Neither of them noticed the small camera hidden inside the antique clock in the corner of the room.
May you like
A red light blinked once.
Someone was watching.
