Chapter 5 - The Man Wearing Dante's FaceThe safe house had been protected by four men.
All four were unconscious.
Maggie was gone.
The cameras had been disabled exactly nine seconds before the abduction.
Nine seconds.
Dante watched the footage.
“Who has access to your security system?” Beatrice asked.
“Me.”
“Then someone has access to you.”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
They returned to Manhattan before dawn.
By 5:00 a.m., Beatrice had stopped crying.
She had entered a different state.
Cold.
Focused.
The part of her that lived inside spreadsheets had taken over.
She covered Dante's dining table with documents.
“Look.”
He leaned over them.
“These transfers.”
She pointed.
“Every suspicious payment from the Moretti accounts went through four companies.”
“Shell companies.”
“Yes.”
“They aren't mine.”
“I know.”
She circled the dates.
“Look at when they were created.”
Dante stared.
“All within forty-eight hours.”
“Exactly.”
“And?”
“They were created after a specific event.”
“What event?”
Beatrice pointed to one date.
“Thomas Wilkes disappeared.”
Dante's eyes narrowed.
“Twelve years ago.”
“Yes.”
“That's impossible.”
“Maybe.”
She turned another page.
The companies weren't connected through directors.
They weren't connected through addresses.
They weren't connected through tax records.
But they shared one thing.
One bank.
One branch.
One private banker.
“Eleanor Shaw.”
Dante recognized the name.
“Wilkes family banker.”
“She handled both companies.”
“And yours.”
“For eight years.”
Beatrice stared at him.
“You never noticed?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever built this wanted the fraud to look like internal theft.”
Beatrice slowly nodded.
Then she saw something.
A recurring number.
1739.
“It appears on every transfer.”
Dante frowned.
“What is it?”
“I don't know.”
She searched the records.
“No account number.”
“No invoice number.”
“It's a code.”
“For what?”
Before she could answer, Dante's phone rang.
A video arrived.
Maggie was sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Her wrists were tied.
A man stood behind her.
His face hidden.
Beatrice grabbed the phone.
“Maggie!”
Her sister looked up.
“Bea.”
The man behind her spoke.
“Very touching.”
“Who are you?”
“You already know.”
“No.”
“You've been looking at his name all night.”
Beatrice's eyes narrowed.
“Thomas Wilkes.”
A laugh.
“Not quite.”
The camera shifted.
A wall appeared behind Maggie.
A black circle was painted on it.
Inside the circle:
1739
Beatrice gasped.
“Dante.”
The video continued.
“You have six hours.”
“For what?”
“Bring the original Moretti ledger.”
“I don't have it.”
“You do.”
“No.”
The man leaned closer to Maggie.
“You have something better.”
Beatrice froze.
“What's better?”
“Your father's notebook.”
She stopped breathing.
Dante looked at her.
“You know what he's talking about?”
“No.”
A lie.
Because a memory had surfaced.
When Beatrice was eleven, her father had given her a tiny black notebook.
He told her:
Never throw this away.
After his death, she had hidden it in a box.
She hadn't opened it in years.
The man continued.
“Bring the notebook to the old Wilkes estate by six.”
“Or?”
He turned Maggie's face toward the camera.
“Your sister disappears.”
The screen went black.
Beatrice sank into a chair.
Dante stood in front of her.
“Where is the notebook?”
She looked up.
“My apartment.”
“Then we're going.”
He started toward the door.
Beatrice stopped him.
“No.”
He turned.
“If they want the notebook, maybe we should give it to them.”
Dante stared.
“That was too easy.”
“Exactly.”
She stood.
“We're going to give them something.”
“What?”
“A fake.”
For the first time that night, Dante smiled.
Then his phone buzzed.
A message appeared.
WE KNOW YOU'RE PLANNING TO LIE.
Beatrice's smile vanished.
May you like
A second message followed.
THAT'S WHY WE TOOK YOUR MOTHER TOO.
