Chapter 4 - THE PEOPLE NOBODY COUNTEDBy noon, the story had spread through every Sterling Hospitality kitchen in Chicago.
The hallway smelled like Mrs. Alvarez’s cinnamon candles.
The neighbor’s television played too loudly through the wall.
Everything looked normal.
Except the door.
The deadbolt was unlocked.
Emily distinctly remembered locking it.
Rory was asleep against her shoulder, exhausted after spending hours at a police interview center with a child advocate.
Emily backed away.
Marcus Hale had insisted that one of Kane’s security drivers take them home.
The driver, Cole, was still waiting at the stairwell.
“Cole.”
Something in her voice brought him running.
He saw the door.
“Stay here.”
He drew his weapon and entered.
Emily’s heart hammered.
Thirty seconds later he returned.
“Apartment’s clear.”
“Was someone inside?”
“Yes.”
Emily carried Rory into the living room.
Every drawer had been opened.
Cabinet doors hung wide.
Her mattress had been pulled halfway off the frame.
Rory’s toy box had been emptied.
Yet the television remained.
So did Emily’s inexpensive laptop.
An envelope containing eighty dollars in emergency cash sat untouched.
She moved toward the kitchen.
Then stopped.
The top drawer was open.
The purple work log was gone.
“They took it.”
Cole immediately called Marcus.
Emily felt sick.
“The investigators copied it.”
“I know.”
“So why steal the original?”
That question followed her into the night.
Within twenty minutes, Vincent Kane arrived personally.
Emily hadn’t expected that.
Neither had the uniformed officers documenting the burglary.
Vincent entered wearing no tie, his dark overcoat unbuttoned.
Rory woke when she heard his voice.
“Mr. Kane?”
Vincent turned.
She sat on the couch wrapped in a blanket.
“Hi, troublemaker.”
For the first time all day, Rory smiled.
Emily folded her arms.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Come here.”
“Someone broke into the home of a witness involved in a case connected to a business deal I was considering.”
“That sounds like a lawyer’s explanation.”
“It was.”
“What’s the real one?”
Vincent looked at Rory.
“The real one is that nobody should make a four-year-old afraid inside her own home.”
Emily didn’t know what to say to that.
Marcus entered from the kitchen.
“Building camera caught someone at 11:31. Hoodie, baseball cap. No clear face.”
“What did they touch?” Vincent asked.
“Mainly desk drawers. Kitchen paperwork. Closet.”
“They were looking for documents.”
“Almost certainly.”
Emily frowned.
“But the investigators already have copies.”
Marcus nodded.
“Maybe Sterling didn’t know that.”
Vincent disagreed.
“He knew.”
“Then why?”
Vincent walked toward the window.
Outside, Chicago traffic moved below them.
“Because the paper matters for another reason.”
Emily suddenly remembered.
“There was something written on the back.”
Everyone turned.
“What?” Marcus asked.
Emily pressed her fingers against her forehead.
“Months ago, I ran out of paper while taking notes. One night after a private event, I wrote something on the back page.”
“What?”
“A license plate.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
She explained.
Sterling had hosted a private dinner at his Gold Coast venue.
No official guest list.
Staff had been ordered to surrender phones.
At two in the morning, Emily had been carrying trash outside when she saw David arguing with a man beside a black SUV.
The man handed David a large document envelope.
David noticed Emily.
He became furious.
“He asked what I had seen.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
“And the plate?”
“I wrote it down because the whole thing felt strange.”
“Do you remember it?”
“Partially.”
Marcus opened his notebook.
“Give me anything.”
“Illinois plate. I think it started with GX. Maybe GX7.”
“What else?”
Emily closed her eyes.
A memory returned.
Purple ink.
She had written the plate beside one of Rory’s stars.
“GX7-419.”
Marcus typed.
Vincent watched his face change.
“What?”
Marcus turned the phone.
The plate belonged to a company vehicle registered to North Crescent Staffing.
The shell company receiving the missing payroll money.
Emily whispered, “So whoever broke in—”
“Wasn’t interested in your unpaid wages,” Vincent said.
“They wanted the license plate.”
Rory, listening from the couch, raised one hand.
Everyone looked at her.
“What is it?” Emily asked.
“I know the paper.”
Emily crouched.
“What do you mean?”
“The star paper.”
“Yes.”
“I colored another one.”
“When?”
“Before I went to see Mr. Kane.”
Rory climbed from the couch and walked toward her backpack.
She pulled out a coloring book.
Inside was a wrinkled photograph.
Emily froze.
It showed Rory holding the work log that morning.
Mrs. Alvarez must have taken it.
Rory pointed proudly.
“I wanted Grandma to see my purple stars, so Miss Alvarez took a picture.”
Marcus took the photograph carefully.
The entire back page of the log was visible.
Including the license plate.
And something Emily had forgotten completely.
Below the plate she had written:
Man called DS “partner.” Mentioned Larkin account.
Vincent’s face darkened.
“Larkin.”
Emily looked at him.
“You know it?”
He knew it very well.
Larkin Municipal Pension Fund was one of the largest public retirement funds in Illinois.
Two years earlier, Sterling Hospitality had received a twenty-five-million-dollar development loan backed indirectly by Larkin assets.
Vincent had opposed the deal.
David had bragged that he had “friends” who could make paperwork disappear.
Vincent had assumed arrogance.
Perhaps it had been confession.
Marcus already had his phone out.
“I’ll call the investigators.”
Vincent nodded.
Then Emily asked the question nobody wanted to ask.
“If this is bigger than unpaid wages, what happens to us?”
Vincent looked at her.
“You tell the truth.”
“And then?”
“I make sure you get the chance to keep telling it.”
Emily shook her head.
“You can’t protect us forever.”
“No.”
He looked toward Rory.
“But long enough can be enough.”
The following morning, police identified the vehicle used by the burglar.
It belonged to Sterling Hospitality.
David claimed it had been stolen.
Then investigators found something worse.
North Crescent Staffing had received more than four million dollars during the previous three years.
Much of it had disappeared into accounts connected to companies nobody recognized.
Except Vincent.
One belonged to Councilman Raymond Bell.
Another to pension trustee George Larkin Jr.
And one—
Vincent stared at the screen for a long time.
Marcus noticed.
“What is it?”
The final company was called Kessler Urban Holdings.
Vincent sat back.
Twenty-two years earlier, Kessler Urban Holdings had been used in the deal that destroyed Vincent Kane’s father.
A scandal that drove his family into bankruptcy.
A scandal Vincent had spent half his life believing his father caused.
He looked again at Emily’s photograph.
This was no longer only about seventy-seven days of stolen wages.
May you like
Someone had been stealing for decades.
And four-year-old Rory Carter had just handed him the first piece of proof.
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