Chapter 7 - THE MISSING SHIPMENT
Roman received Paige in a daylight office that looked almost disappointingly ordinary. There were ledgers on the desk, a cold cup of coffee, and a photograph of three boys on a fishing dock. Paige noticed that the youngest boy had Roman's solemn eyes. She also noticed that he turned the photograph facedown before inviting her to sit.
She showed him the article and explained why the missing shipment mattered. Elena's clinic served families who could not afford to wait for an insurance company to approve basic treatment. Without the supplies, appointments would be canceled and children sent across the city for care they might never receive. Roman listened without interruption. When she finished, he opened a file on his computer and went very still.
“The manifest was changed,” he said.
“By Donovan?”
“Someone with access.”
Paige leaned forward. “Then fix it.”
Roman gave a humorless smile. “You think it's that simple?”
“I think the people who need the shipment don't care how complicated your business is.”
He asked Luca to verify the manifest and sent a lawyer to contact the distributor. Paige insisted that any replacement supplies be delivered through the clinic's normal procurement process, with documentation. She refused to become the grateful face of a mysterious donation that might hide stolen property. To Roman's surprise, she understood that a favor could be another kind of chain.
Later, Luca found evidence that Donovan had used an old Gallow shipping account to divert cargo. The account should have been closed after Roman's brothers died. Its reactivation required a second signature, and that signature belonged to Victor Mercer, the attorney Paige had noticed at the card table. Roman stared at the page for a long time. Mercer had helped bury his family. He had also been his father's closest adviser.
When Paige prepared to leave, Roman asked why she had returned instead of taking the money and forgetting him. She told him about the night her mother had waited six hours in an emergency room because their insurance had lapsed. “I remember the people who looked away,” she said. “I try not to be one of them.”
Outside, she found an unfamiliar car idling across the street. Its driver lifted a phone and photographed her. She ducked back into the house, her pulse pounding. Roman came to the doorway and saw the car disappear. His expression changed. The theft was no longer merely about cargo. Someone had decided Paige mattered.
Before she left Roman's office, Paige asked to see the photograph again. He hesitated, then turned it upright. He named his brothers, Anthony and Michael, and told her the photograph had been taken on the last summer they spent together. Paige did not offer sympathy as a shortcut to intimacy. She simply said they looked happy. Roman touched the edge of the frame. “They were,” he answered.
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At the clinic, Elena showed Paige a wall covered in handwritten thank-you notes from patients. Some were drawings from children; others were messages from grandparents who had finally received medication they could afford. Paige photographed the wall, not to send Roman a sentimental plea, but to remind herself what the investigation was really about. It was easy to be consumed by a dangerous man's secrets. It was harder and more important to remember the people who would never be invited into his office.
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