Chapter 4 - The Numbers Jo Wasn’t Supposed to Notice
Jo had never considered herself brave.
She considered bravery a dramatic word used by people after danger ended.
During danger, mostly she felt tired and annoyed.
Which was why, when Gideon told her she was not going anywhere near the Copper Kettle, Jo answered,
“I have the keys.”
“No.”
“I worked there four years.”
“No.”
“I know the basement.”
“No.”
“You know this conversation would be shorter if you tried a different word.”
Gideon stared at her.
They were standing inside a furnished apartment owned by one of Gideon’s legitimate companies.
Jo had agreed to stay there for three nights.
Temporary.
Absolutely temporary.
Sammy thought it was the greatest apartment ever constructed because the refrigerator made crushed ice.
Gideon hated that Jo insisted on calling it “the witness-protection Airbnb.”
“Someone bought your workplace to reach one of my facilities,” Gideon said.
“Which means I might know something useful.”
“Which means someone already searched your apartment.”
“Exactly.”
“That is an argument for staying here.”
“That is an argument for finding out why.”
Gideon looked toward Marissa.
The attorney was drinking coffee at the counter.
“Help me.”
Marissa shook her head.
“She has a point.”
Gideon looked betrayed.
“You’re her attorney.”
“Correct.”
“I pay your—”
Jo cleared her throat.
Gideon corrected himself.
“The emergency legal retainer anonymously deposited through the women’s legal aid foundation is completely unrelated to me.”
Marissa smiled.
“Learning fast.”
They went to the diner in daylight.
Marco’s team swept it first.
The basement was filled with old inventory.
Boxes.
Broken stools.
Holiday decorations.
Jo walked directly toward a rusted shelf.
“There.”
Gideon saw nothing.
“What?”
“That shelf moved.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Roy complained every week that he couldn't reach the drain behind it.”
She pointed.
“It was against that pipe.”
Now it stood six inches away.
Security pulled it aside.
Behind it, somebody had cut through plaster.
A narrow opening led toward an old municipal tunnel.
Gideon’s jaw hardened.
“Cross.”
Jo crouched near the floor.
“Maybe.”
He looked down.
“You doubt me?”
“I doubt people who decide answers before checking evidence.”
Marissa glanced at Gideon.
“I like her.”
“So does everyone apparently.”
Jo noticed a stack of invoices sitting beneath an old register.
“What are these?”
“Trash,” Marco said.
Jo picked them up.
Copper Kettle invoices.
Coffee.
Food suppliers.
Cleaning products.
Normal.
Then she noticed recurring payments.
Redwood Janitorial.
$2,480.
Every Wednesday.
“That’s impossible.”
Gideon looked over.
“What?”
“We cleaned the diner ourselves.”
She flipped backward.
Same payment.
Week after week.
For eighteen months.
Marco frowned.
“Money laundering?”
“Bad money laundering.”
Jo continued.
“Whoever did this wanted the transaction found eventually.”
Gideon looked at her.
“Why?”
“To connect Redwood to the diner.”
“And Cross.”
Jo nodded.
“Maybe.”
Again that word.
Gideon almost smiled.
She continued scanning.
Then stopped.
Another company.
Harbor Light Produce.
Weekly deliveries.
“Also fake.”
“How do you know?”
“We got produce from Bell Brothers.”
Gideon took the invoice.
Harbor Light Produce.
He knew the name.
His finance director, Everett Vale, had approved Harbor Light as a vendor for three Hale-owned restaurants.
Gideon said nothing.
Jo saw his face.
“Who?”
“Someone inside my organization.”
She kept reading.
Harbor Light.
Redwood Janitorial.
Sparrow Holdings.
Payments moved between all three.
The pattern looked complicated until Jo did what she always did.
Ignored the big numbers.
Found the repeated small ones.
“Here.”
Gideon leaned closer.
She pointed.
“Forty-seven dollars.”
“What about it?”
“Every shell company pays exactly forty-seven dollars in monthly document-storage fees.”
“So?”
“Same billing account.”
Marco’s eyes sharpened.
“One administrator.”
Jo nodded.
“Different companies. Same person managing paperwork.”
Gideon looked at her differently.
“You do this professionally?”
“I was assistant bookkeeper before Sammy was born.”
“Why are you waitressing?”
“My ex disappeared, daycare costs money, and accounting firms dislike employees who have to leave when preschool calls.”
No self-pity.
Again.
Just arithmetic.
Marco traced the account.
Twenty minutes later his laptop displayed a name.
Everett Vale.
Gideon went silent.
Everett had managed his books twelve years.
Had attended his mother’s funeral.
Had introduced him to senators.
Had access to every legitimate and illegitimate account Gideon controlled.
Jo looked at Marissa.
“Related?”
Marissa stared.
“My older brother.”
Nobody spoke.
Marissa slowly put down her coffee.
“I haven’t spoken to Everett in seven years.”
Gideon looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because when our father died, Everett forged my signature to take control of his company.”
Jo closed her eyes.
“Apparently fraud is a family hobby.”
Marissa almost laughed.
Gideon did not.
“Everett is working with Julian Cross.”
Marco shook his head.
“Maybe not.”
He turned the laptop.
Payments from the shell network had been leaving Cross-controlled companies.
But they were not arriving in Everett’s personal accounts.
They flowed elsewhere.
A trust.
Named Ashford Beneficiary Trust.
Gideon recognized it.
His father had created it before dying.
“What is that?” Jo asked.
“My family trust.”
“How does Everett access it?”
“He shouldn't.”
Marco kept working.
Then stopped.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“The trust has been paying Nathan Bradley.”
Jo went cold.
“How long?”
Marco looked at her.
“Three years.”
Jo stared.
Nathan had disappeared four years ago.
Three years of payments.
Monthly.
Increasing.
“What for?”
Nobody answered.
Jo took the laptop.
She scanned entries.
Not huge amounts.
Two thousand.
Three thousand.
Five.
Then twelve thousand three months earlier.
Fifty thousand December 27.
Four days before Nathan reappeared.
She felt sick.
“My ex-husband has been on your family payroll for three years.”
Gideon’s face was unreadable.
“I didn’t know.”
“Then who did?”
Marco whispered,
“Everett.”
Jo sat.
Everything seemed to rearrange.
Nathan had not randomly found Redwood.
He had not randomly returned.
Someone connected to Gideon had been funding him before Gideon and Jo ever met.
Why?
Jo opened another tab.
Payroll descriptions.
Consulting.
Research.
Personal profile acquisition.
Her stomach turned.
“Gideon.”
He moved beside her.
One payment contained an attachment.
A PDF.
Marco opened it.
A photograph appeared.
Jo leaving Sammy’s elementary school.
Date: nine months earlier.
Another.
Jo at a grocery store.
Seven months.
Another.
Sammy playing in a park.
Six months.
Gideon’s expression changed.
Jo could barely breathe.
“They were watching us.”
Long before New Year’s.
Long before Gideon entered the diner.
“What did I do?”
Gideon looked at the photos.
Nothing made sense.
Then Jo noticed one more document.
A scanned hospital record.
Sammy’s birth certificate.
Father: Nathan Bradley.
Mother: Joanna Bradley.
Emergency contact at birth:
Margaret Bradley.
Nathan’s mother.
Gideon froze.
Jo saw it.
“You know that name.”
He did.
Margaret Bradley had once been Margaret Hale.
Before marriage.
Before changing her name.
Gideon’s father had a younger sister who disappeared from the family after refusing an arranged business marriage.
Gideon had not heard her name in twenty-six years.
He looked at Jo.
“Sammy’s grandmother.”
Jo nodded.
“What about her?”
Gideon struggled to speak.
“She was my aunt.”
Silence.
Jo stared.
“No.”
Gideon looked toward the hallway, as though Sammy might somehow be standing there.
Nathan Bradley.
Nathan Hale by blood.
Gideon’s cousin.
Sammy—
Gideon whispered,
“Your son is family.”
Jo’s face emptied.
And suddenly Gideon understood why someone had been watching a poor waitress and her little boy long before New Year’s Eve.
May you like
It had never begun with an empty chair.
It had begun with a bloodline.
