Chương 11
He ended the call.
Victor’s car was two blocks from the warehouse. Leo sat behind the wheel. Raymond was beside him. Both men waited for instructions.
Victor looked at the brick building through the rain-spotted windshield. A delivery truck blocked the loading entrance. Two men smoked beneath the awning. One had worked for Dominic for more than a decade.
Victor’s handgun rested beneath his jacket.
He could enter through the side door. Raymond knew the code. Leo could disable the exterior cameras. The server racks were on the second floor behind a steel gate. It would take six minutes to reach them, perhaps less.
Everything about the plan felt familiar.
That frightened him.
He called Nina.
She answered with, “Where are you?”
“Near the warehouse.”
“You have three seconds to tell me you’re turning around.”
“Can you get the order faster?”
“I can ask. I cannot manufacture a judge.”
“Dominic is moving equipment.”
“How do you know?”
Victor watched the delivery truck.
“I can see it.”
Nina inhaled. “Do not enter. Photograph what you can from a public location. Send me the license plate. I’ll contact the agents.”
“They’ll be gone.”
“The truck can be followed legally.”
“By whom?”
“People with badges and paperwork.”
Victor looked at Leo. “Send her the plate.”
Leo took a photograph through the windshield.
Nina’s voice softened a fraction. “Leave, Victor.”
He hated the request because obeying it felt like surrender.
Anna’s sentence returned: making violence look practical.
“Fine,” he said.
He told Leo to drive.
As they pulled away, one of the men beneath the awning lifted a phone to his ear.
The delivery truck left three minutes later. Federal agents stopped it on Interstate 90 with a warrant tied to the ongoing financial investigation. Inside were two servers, boxes of payroll files, and shredding equipment.
Dominic was not in the truck.
For once, waiting had preserved more than force would have.
Victor did not tell Anna that. Nina did.
Anna called him that evening.
“You listened.”
“Don’t sound surprised.”
“I am surprised.”
“That’s insulting.”
“It’s accurate.”
He stood alone in his bedroom. The damaged brass doorstop had not been repaired. The cream duvet lay folded at the foot of the untouched white bed.
“I almost went in,” he said.
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted to.”
“I know.”
Victor looked at the indentation the broken stopper had left in the baseboard. “Does it count if I wanted to?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because not doing what you want is usually the part that costs something.”
He sat on the edge of the bed.
Anna heard the mattress shift. “Where are you?”
“Home.”
“In that room?”
“Yes.”
“Have you slept?”
“No.”
“When was the last time?”
He checked his watch, as though it might contain the answer. “Tuesday.”
“It’s Friday.”
“I know the days.”
“You don’t sound convincing.”
Victor loosened his tie. “Thomas eat the chicken?”
“He ordered the hamburger after I fell asleep.”
“Good.”
“It had too much salt.”
“It had truffles.”
“He picked them off.”
Victor leaned back on one hand. “Then it was only a twenty-eight-dollar hamburger.”
Anna laughed. The sound was brief and surprised, as though it had escaped before she could prevent it.
Victor closed his eyes.
Neither of them spoke for a while.
Then Anna said, “Sleep in the bed.”
His eyes opened.
“It’s a bed,” she added. “Not a memorial.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“No. I know what it’s for.”
Victor looked at the pillows where she had been lying with his gun above her face.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” he said.
“That wasn’t agreement.”
“Good night, Anna.”
He ended the call.
He removed the gun from his waistband and placed it in the nightstand drawer. He turned off the bedside lamp, then turned it on again.
The room seemed too large in darkness.
He slept on top of the duvet for three hours.
The servers recovered from the truck contained enough evidence to confirm the payroll scheme and something worse. Dominic had used employee identities to create dozens of shell-company records, false contractor payments, and tax documents. Some workers appeared to earn money they had never received. Inflated income had disqualified several families from assistance programs and created debts they did not understand.
Anna’s name appeared on three companies.
One was listed as a medical-supply consultant earning ninety-four thousand dollars a year.
“That’s why the charity application was denied,” Thomas said when David explained it. “They thought she made too much.”
Anna stared at the document. Her Social Security number appeared beneath a signature that resembled hers from a distance.
“I never signed this.”
“We know,” David said.
“How?”
“The electronic signature originated from an office IP address linked to Lakeshore. It was submitted while hospital records show you were attending your brother’s dialysis appointment.”
Thomas looked at her. “My illness gave you an alibi.”
“Finally useful,” Anna said automatically.
Thomas smiled, but Anna did not.
The fraudulent income had consequences beyond the hospital account. The Internal Revenue Service had sent notices to an old address. A collections company had filed a claim. Her credit report contained an account she had never opened.
Victor sat at the far end of the conference table.
Anna picked up the false form. “You said the debt was gone.”
“The hospital balance is paid,” Nina said. “These other issues will take time to correct.”
Anna turned toward Victor. “Your money can’t make this zero.”
“No.”
“You knew Dominic used names?”
“No.”
“Did you know he used companies?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
Victor’s attorney began to speak. He raised a hand.
“Cash movement. Contracts. Property purchases. Payments we didn’t want connected directly to me.”
Anna’s voice lowered. “Crimes.”
“Yes.”
Nina’s mouth tightened, but she did not interrupt.
Anna set the paper down. “So when he needed more names, he used ours because we were already there.”
Victor looked at the signature. “Yes.”
“You built the machine.”
“Yes.”
“He fed us into it.”
“Yes.”
May you like
Thomas shifted uneasily. “Anna.”
She stood. “Stop saying yes like honesty is the same as fixing it.”
