Chapter 3 - MARCUS’S CONFESSIONFor several seconds after the video began, nobody in the car spoke.
Marcus did not die in an accident.
My first instinct was to call the police.
My second was to call the unknown number.
I did neither.
Marcus had spent the last month of his life telling me not to react quickly.
At the time, I thought he was stressed because Vance Meridian Holdings was preparing for the largest acquisition in its history.
Now I wondered whether he had been preparing me.
A truck rolled slowly along the road.
I stepped behind a cedar hedge until it passed.
Then I walked another quarter mile to a twenty-four-hour gas station and called the only person in Seattle who had nothing to gain from Marcus’s death.
My best friend, Natalie Brooks.
She answered on the second ring.
“Harper?”
The instant she heard my voice, she stopped asking questions.
Twenty minutes later, her dented Subaru pulled into the parking lot.
Natalie jumped out wearing pajama pants, boots, and a raincoat over what appeared to be an old college sweatshirt.
When she saw the garbage bags, her face changed.
“No.”
I said nothing.
“Tell me his mother did not actually throw you out.”
“She actually threw me out.”
“Two days after Marcus died?”
“Forty-seven hours.”
Natalie looked toward the wealthy neighborhood behind me.
“I’m going to prison tonight.”
Despite everything, a broken laugh escaped me.
It was the first human sound I had made in hours.
Natalie put both bags in the car and wrapped her arms around me.
That was when I finally cried.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
I collapsed against my best friend in the parking lot of a gas station while strangers walked past buying cigarettes and coffee.
“I don’t understand,” I kept saying.
Natalie held me tighter.
“You don’t have to understand tonight.”
But I did.
Because someone already knew about the drive.
At Natalie’s apartment in Queen Anne, she gave me dry clothes and made tea I did not drink.
Then I showed her the messages.
Her expression became serious.
“Where’s the drive?”
I touched the hidden pocket.
She stared at me.
“You’ve been carrying it this entire time?”
“I don’t know where else to put it.”
“What’s on it?”
“I haven’t looked.”
“Good.”
I frowned.
“Good?”
“If someone sent you a warning not to connect it to the internet, maybe we should listen.”
“We?”
Natalie gave me a look.
“You didn’t think I was letting you do this alone.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Well, you thought wrong.”
At 1:14 a.m., another message came.
Tomorrow. 10 a.m. Pioneer Square. North entrance of Union Station. Come alone. Bring nothing.
Natalie read it over my shoulder.
“Absolutely not.”
“I need answers.”
“You need to stay alive.”
“I need both.”
She paced across the room.
“Marcus was a billionaire executive. His family has private security, attorneys, politicians on speed dial—”
“And someone murdered him.”
“You don’t know that.”
I held up the phone.
“Someone thinks so.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Before I could answer, a car door slammed outside.
Natalie stopped moving.
Another door.
Then another.
Her apartment overlooked the street.
She switched off the lights and carefully pulled the curtain aside.
A black SUV sat below.
Two men stepped out.
Both wore dark coats.
My blood went cold.
“Do you recognize them?” Natalie whispered.
“No.”
One man looked up at the building.
I pulled her away from the window.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
No one spoke.
Then a man’s voice said, “Mrs. Vance?”
I could barely breathe.
“Yes?”
“Turn off the kitchen light.”
My eyes moved toward the dark kitchen.
“It’s already off.”
A pause.
“Good. That means they haven’t seen you.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone your husband trusted.”
“Who are the men outside?”
“Not people you should meet.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Did they kill Marcus?”
Another pause.
“I believe they helped.”
Natalie mouthed, Speaker.
I activated it.
“Who are you?” I repeated.
“My name is Benjamin Shaw. I was Marcus’s chief internal auditor until six months ago.”
I remembered him.
Quiet. Early fifties. Gray beard.
Marcus had told me Benjamin retired unexpectedly.
“You moved to Arizona.”
“That was the story.”
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
Outside, one of the men approached the entrance.
Natalie grabbed my arm.
Benjamin continued.
“Mrs. Vance, there is a service stairwell at the back of the building. Leave now.”
“How do you know where I am?”
“Marcus put a tracker in the drive case.”
I almost dropped the phone.
“He tracked me?”
“He tracked the drive.”
A pounding came from downstairs.
Someone pressed Natalie’s buzzer.
She did not answer.
Benjamin’s voice sharpened.
“Move.”
We grabbed nothing except coats and the drive.
Natalie led me through the back stairwell into an alley.
We crossed two streets before a gray sedan pulled beside us.
I grabbed Natalie.
Benjamin lowered the passenger window.
His beard was longer than I remembered, but it was him.
“Get in.”
Natalie hesitated.
Another black SUV turned onto the street behind us.
That decided it.
We got in.
Benjamin accelerated.
For several minutes, none of us spoke.
Seattle moved past in wet streaks of yellow light.
Finally I asked, “What did Marcus find?”
Benjamin kept his eyes on the road.
“Your husband discovered that someone inside Vance Meridian had been stealing from the company for more than a decade.”
“How much?”
“Initially? About forty million.”
Natalie exhaled.
“That’s not exactly pocket change.”
Benjamin’s jaw tightened.
“That was before we found the second ledger.”
“What second ledger?”
“The one involving shell companies, government contracts, bribes, pension funds, and offshore accounts.”
My stomach turned.
“How much?”
“We stopped counting after six hundred million dollars.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
Benjamin looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“That’s the question Marcus was trying to answer.”
“His mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“Derek?”
“I don’t know.”
“Leonard?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what do you know?”
Benjamin pulled into an underground parking garage.
He turned off the engine.
Silence filled the car.
“I know Marcus believed the corruption started before he became CEO.”
“So?”
“So five people had the authority necessary to hide transactions of that size.”
He looked directly at me.
“Three were members of his family.”
My chest tightened.
“And the other two?”
“One was Vance Meridian’s chief financial officer.”
“Gordon Price.”
Benjamin nodded.
“And the fifth?”
He hesitated.
“Marcus himself.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“I didn’t say he stole anything.”
“You just said—”
“I said his authorization had been used.”
“That’s impossible.”
Benjamin’s eyes softened.
“Harper, somebody spent years building records designed to make it appear that Marcus was responsible.”
The meaning landed slowly.
The suspicious transactions.
The hidden records.
The accident.
“Oh, God.”
Benjamin nodded.
“If Marcus died before exposing them, the evidence would make him look like the criminal.”
“And everyone else walks away clean.”
“Exactly.”
I reached into my coat and removed the encrypted drive.
Benjamin stared at it.
“Marcus said this was the insurance policy.”
“What’s on it?”
“Everything he could prove.”
“Then open it.”
Benjamin shook his head.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“It has three layers of encryption.”
“You’re an auditor.”
“Not a cryptographer.”
“Who can?”
“Marcus built it so only one person could.”
My throat tightened.
“Who?”
Benjamin looked at my wedding ring.
“You.”
I almost laughed.
“I teach art history.”
“Marcus didn’t use technical passwords.”
“Then what did he use?”
“Memories.”
I stared at the drive.
Benjamin handed me an old laptop.
“No internet connection. New hard drive. Bought with cash.”
I inserted the device.
A black screen appeared.
Then white letters.
QUESTION ONE OF THREE
WHERE DID I FIRST TELL YOU THE TRUTH?
My hands went still.
Natalie looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
I knew exactly what it meant.
Not where Marcus first told me he loved me.
Where he first told me the truth.
I typed:
PORT TOWNSEND
The screen changed.
QUESTION TWO OF THREE
WHAT DID YOU SAY I COULD NEVER BUY?
My eyes filled with tears.
Marcus and I had once argued during our first year of marriage because he had tried to solve every problem with money.
I typed:
TRUST
The screen changed again.
QUESTION THREE OF THREE
WHO WAS I MOST AFRAID OF BECOMING?
This time, I hesitated.
Because only Marcus and I had ever discussed that night.
His father had been brilliant, powerful and terrifyingly controlling.
Marcus had spent his entire adult life afraid wealth would turn him into the same man.
I typed:
MY FATHER
The drive unlocked.
Hundreds of folders appeared.
Benjamin leaned closer.
Then one folder opened automatically.
It contained a video.
Marcus appeared on the screen.
Alive.
My hand flew to my mouth.
He was sitting in his private study.
He looked exhausted.
“Harper,” he began, “if you are watching this, then I failed to get out safely.”
I started crying before he finished the sentence.
May you like
Marcus looked straight into the camera.
“And if my family has already told you I died in an accident, do not believe them.”
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