Chương 3
“I had help.”
“From Marcus?”
She gave him a tired look.
“Too soon.”
“Fair.”
He finished photographing the ledger and slipped it into a large evidence bag without touching its pages.
On the label he wrote the time, location, source, and Allison’s name.
She read upside down.
“Recovered by Allison Romero.”
“Correct.”
“Not found.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t find it.”
Her mouth tightened.
“What happens if Marcus says I planted it?”
“He probably will.”
“And if the board believes him?”
“They might.”
“You really know how to make a person feel better.”
“I’m not here to make you feel better.”
“That part has been extremely clear.”
He sealed the bag.
Then he set up the overhead scanner.
The next three hours passed without either of them calling what they were doing hope.
At 12:21 a.m., Luca found that seven transaction amounts in the ledger matched payments already flagged in the gallery’s general ledger.
At 12:47, he found eleven.
At 1:05, Allison stopped pacing and sat on the floor because the only other chair was buried under acquisition binders.
At 1:18, the printer jammed.
Luca pulled out the toner cartridge, swore softly, and got black powder on the sleeve of his navy hoodie.
Allison watched him wipe it with a paper towel.
“That your forensic technique?”
“Very advanced.”
“You want help?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
She stood, freed the paper with narrower fingers, and closed the side panel.
The printer started again.
Neither of them mentioned that it was the first thing they had successfully done together.
At 1:32, Luca reheated coffee that had been on his desk since late afternoon.
He took one sip and made a face.
Allison, looking over his shoulder at a table of access logs, said, “You deserve that.”
“You don’t know what I deserve.”
The words came out harder than he intended.
She looked at him.
For a moment, he considered pretending he had meant the coffee.
Then she said, “Neither do you.”
He let that stand.
Luca had built a career around numbers because numbers did not ask to be liked. Numbers could lie when people arranged them to lie, but they did not resent him for finding out.
Eight years earlier, at a pharmaceutical distributor in Chicago, he had found something he believed was fraud.
He had been twenty-five, ambitious, and absolutely certain.
The controller had approved payments to a logistics vendor owned by his wife’s cousin. Luca had built a clean presentation, escalated it to internal audit, and watched a frightened room turn on the controller in less than an hour.
The payments had been improper.
They had not been stolen.
The controller had disclosed the relationship in a document Luca had never requested.
He lost his job anyway for concealing the conflict from a new manager. His marriage collapsed under the public disgrace, and six months later he died of a heart attack in a grocery store parking lot.
None of that was Luca’s legal responsibility.
That fact had never made him sleep better.
Afterward, he stopped saying he knew things until he had made every reasonable attempt to prove himself wrong.
At 1:46, Allison pointed at the monitor.
“That vendor.”
Luca followed her finger.
Redwood Conservation Services.
“Why?”
“They don’t do conservation.”
“They billed you for conservation.”
“They’re a logistics broker. Small. I used them once when we had a crate stranded at JFK. They found temporary storage.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
Luca opened the vendor master.
Redwood had received six of the questionable payments.
“Who reactivated them?”
“Finance, presumably.”
“Your approval credentials are on the change.”
Her face hardened.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know you say that.”
She stared at him.
“You still don’t believe me.”
“I don’t believe Marcus either.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
“Do you believe me?”
Luca rested his hands on the desk.
“I believe someone used your credentials. I don’t know who.”
“You think maybe I did.”
“Yes.”
The honesty landed.
Allison looked away.
For several seconds, the only sound was the scanner.
Then she nodded.
“Good.”
He had expected anger.
“Good?”
“If you had decided I was innocent tonight because I looked scared under your desk, I’d know you were useless.”
She took her place behind him again.
“Find out.”
At 2:03, Luca isolated login telemetry connected to the forty-five-thousand-dollar payment.
Allison leaned close enough that he could feel the heat from her shoulder.
“Session token issued 2:08 a.m.,” he said.
“My token?”
“Credentials tied to you.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He glanced at her.
“Good question.”
The gallery used hardware security keys for certain high-value financial actions. The audit logs showed Allison’s account had authenticated using a valid key identifier.
That was bad for her.
But the transaction itself had originated from a fixed internal terminal rather than Allison’s laptop.
Luca pulled the endpoint inventory.
Terminal F-17.
He searched the device assignment.
The result appeared.
Executive Conference Office — Marcus Vance.
Allison made a small sound.
Not triumph.
More like pain.
“Don’t,” Luca said.
“What?”
“Don’t decide what it means yet.”
“He used my account from his computer.”
“Someone did.”
“From Marcus’s office.”
“Yes.”
“At two in the morning.”
“Yes.”
She gripped the back of his chair.
“Line four-oh-two.”
Luca turned to the scanned ledger image.
There it was.
402 — 45,000 — AR BATCH — MV TERM — 2:14 — R/C
He highlighted the payment row.
“Forty-five thousand. Marcus’s assigned terminal. Two fourteen a.m.”
Allison bent toward the blue handwriting.
Her face changed.
“He framed me.”
Luca looked at the screen, not at her.
“Maybe.”
She turned on him.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Maybe is enough to keep working.”
“What would be enough for you?”
“To prove it.”
She walked away.
Luca heard her open a cabinet.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“I’m getting a cup.”
“Top shelf.”
“I found it.”
“Those are evidence sample cups.”
She stared at the clear plastic cup in her hand.
“You drink out of evidence cups?”
“No.”
“You own one normal mug.”
May you like
“It broke.”
“That’s depressing.”
