Chapter 5 - The Woman Behind the Money
Susan Reed was alive.
That was the good news.
The bad news was nobody knew where she was.
Police found her phone in Harper’s apartment hallway.
There was a bullet hole in the wall.
Blood on the carpet.
Not enough to suggest a fatal injury.
Enough to terrify Harper.
“I’m leaving.”
Dante blocked the hospital door.
“No.”
“My mother was shot.”
“You have cracked ribs and a concussion.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Harper glared at him.
Dante had stared down armed captains without blinking.
Harper Reed in a hospital gown was somehow more intimidating.
“Dante.”
“Harper.”
“My mother may be bleeding somewhere.”
“And walking into whoever took her helps how?”
Harper opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Dante softened his voice.
“For three years, you have stopped me from making stupid decisions.”
“You still make them.”
“Imagine how bad it would be without you.”
Despite herself, her expression shifted.
“Sit down.”
She did.
Angrily.
Nico entered with news.
A security camera had captured Susan being moved into a gray utility van.
License plate traced to a charitable foundation.
The Margaret Shaw Urban Renewal Trust.
Too obvious.
“Why use her own foundation vehicle?” Harper asked.
“Because she expects nobody to challenge her,” Dante said.
Margaret Shaw’s public reputation bordered on sainthood.
Hospitals.
Scholarships.
Women’s shelters.
Affordable housing.
She had spent four decades becoming the person newspapers called when they wanted quotes about ethical capitalism.
And now Dante believed she had poisoned his father.
Harper believed she had arranged her father’s death.
Dante looked at Nico.
“Where did the van go?”
“Camera lost it near Southside.”
Harper stood again.
This time Dante did not stop her.
Instead, he handed her clothes.
“What?”
“You’re coming.”
She stared.
“You just spent ten minutes telling me I couldn’t.”
“I changed strategy.”
“That quickly?”
“I’m adaptable.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Yes.”
The Southside site covered twelve city blocks.
Abandoned warehouses bordered newly cleared construction lots.
Below them lay forgotten freight tunnels built almost a century earlier.
Gabriel March had managed the project for nine years.
Dante summoned him to the main construction office.
Gabriel arrived furious.
“This better be important.”
Dante placed Peter Alden’s photograph on the table.
“He’s dead.”
Gabriel’s face showed surprise.
Too little.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“Bad answer.”
Harper sat beside Dante with her ribs wrapped beneath a dark sweater.
Gabriel looked at her bruised face.
“Harper.”
She stared.
“Were you disappointed?”
“What?”
“That I woke up.”
His expression changed.
“You think I—”
“Sit down.”
He did.
Dante almost smiled.
Harper opened a folder.
“North Crown Environmental.”
Gabriel went pale.
There.
The reaction.
“Who authorized it?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Forty-six million dollars.”
“There are hundreds of vendors.”
“The company doesn’t exist.”
Gabriel looked toward Dante.
“This is absurd.”
Dante said nothing.
Harper continued.
“Peter Alden stole evidence from my office six hours after I was attacked.”
Silence.
“Lauren Beck says Southside tunnels were used to move trafficked workers under false identities.”
Gabriel’s face collapsed slightly.
“You don’t understand.”
“Explain.”
He looked toward the window.
“My father started it.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Elias said the same.”
Gabriel stared.
“Elias talked?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel leaned back.
“Then I’m dead anyway.”
Harper asked:
“Why?”
“Because Margaret doesn’t forgive.”
Dante’s voice lowered.
“Margaret Shaw killed my father?”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Yes.”
The word landed quietly.
No dramatic music.
No gunshot.
Just truth.
“She poisoned him?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Anthony found out she was financing the network through Sterling Atlantic. He planned to expose her.”
“And Harper’s father?”
“James Reed was the engineer who discovered the tunnel modifications.”
Harper’s hands clenched.
“What happened?”
“Your father refused to sign the safety certification.”
Her voice broke.
“So you killed him?”
“No.”
“My father ran construction then, not me.”
“Who?”
Gabriel looked at Dante.
“Margaret ordered Dominic to handle it.”
Dominic Shaw.
Her son.
“What does handle mean?” Harper asked.
Gabriel looked ashamed.
“They sabotaged the platform.”
Harper shut her eyes.
Fifteen years of believing her father made a mistake.
One loose harness.
One tragic fall.
All manufactured.
Dante moved his hand beneath the table.
Harper found it.
Held it.
The contact surprised him.
He did not let go.
“Where is Susan?” he asked.
Gabriel looked confused.
“Who?”
“Harper’s mother.”
“I don’t know.”
“She was taken in a Shaw Foundation van.”
Gabriel’s fear became real.
“Then Margaret has her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dante stood.
Gabriel quickly added:
“But I know what she wants.”
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
Harper looked at him.
“What’s in it?”
“James Reed copied Anthony’s records. Names, payments, routes, accounts.”
Dante remembered Susan’s metal box.
“The ledger proves everything.”
“Yes.”
Harper frowned.
“Then why didn’t my mother turn it over years ago?”
“Because half the police names were in it.”
That made sense.
Fear had preserved silence.
Gabriel opened a drawer.
Nico immediately reached for his weapon.
Gabriel raised both hands.
“Easy.”
He removed an old paper map.
Spread it across the desk.
“Southside Tunnel Four.”
Dante leaned closer.
“There’s an access chamber beneath Warehouse Twelve.”
“What’s there?”
“Original records room.”
Harper looked at him.
“Margaret’s?”
“Anthony’s.”
Dante froze.
Gabriel continued.
“Your father kept evidence down there because he didn’t trust anybody.”
“Why didn’t Elias know?”
“He did.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
Gabriel corrected himself.
“He knew the room existed. Not the access route.”
“Who did?”
“James Reed.”
Harper stared.
Her father.
Gabriel tapped the map.
“If Susan has the ledger, she may know how to open it.”
“And Margaret needs her alive.”
“For now.”
That was enough.
Dante called Nico.
“Teams around Warehouse Twelve.”
Harper interrupted.
“Quietly.”
Dante looked at her.
“I know.”
“You were going to bring twenty armed men.”
“Maybe twelve.”
“Dante.”
“Fine.”
They entered Tunnel Four just after sunset.
Concrete walls sweated moisture.
Rusting cables hung overhead.
Harper’s breathing was labored after three hundred yards.
Dante stopped.
“You’re done.”
“No.”
“You can barely breathe.”
“Cracked ribs.”
“Yes, I was there when the doctor explained them.”
She leaned against the wall.
“I’m not staying behind.”
“You don’t have to prove anything.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
Her eyes met his.
“Because that’s my mother.”
He nodded.
No argument.
They continued.
Warehouse Twelve’s underground chamber had one steel door.
On it was a faded Moretti company emblem from twenty years earlier.
Harper noticed a keypad.
Four digits.
Dante tried his father’s birthday.
Nothing.
Harper touched the panel.
“My dad loved number patterns.”
She studied scratches around the buttons.
Then entered 0417.
The lock clicked.
Dante looked at her.
“April seventeenth?”
“My birthday.”
The door opened.
Inside were shelves of files.
Photographs.
Ledgers.
And a chair.
Susan Reed sat tied to it.
Alive.
Her shoulder bandaged badly.
“Mom!”
Harper rushed forward.
Dante scanned the room.
Too easy.
Susan saw him.
Her eyes widened.
“Get out!”
The steel door slammed shut behind them.
Lights came on.
A speaker crackled.
Margaret Shaw’s calm voice filled the chamber.
“Dante.”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Margaret.”
“I was hoping you’d bring Harper.”
Dante stood in front of both women.
“Open the door.”
Margaret laughed softly.
“You still sound so much like Anthony.”
Harper untied her mother.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
Susan whispered:
“She doesn’t know where it is.”
Margaret heard.
“Oh, Susan.”
Her voice became almost affectionate.
“You were always a terrible liar.”
Dante looked around the room.
A faint chemical smell reached him.
Gas.
Nico pounded against the other side of the door.
Margaret spoke again.
“Your fathers made the same mistake.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“What mistake?”
“They believed evidence mattered more than power.”
Harper stared upward.
“And you think killing us fixes that?”
“No.”
Margaret paused.
“I think making it look like an old tunnel collapse fixes it.”
Dust began falling from the ceiling.
Somewhere above them, machinery started.
Dante grabbed Harper.
Susan pointed behind the shelving.
“James built an emergency passage!”
“Where?”
“There!”
Dante shoved the shelf aside.
A narrow maintenance opening appeared.
The ceiling shook.
Concrete cracked.
“Go!”
Susan entered first.
Harper followed.
Dante pushed her forward.
“You?”
“Behind you.”
“Dante!”
“I said go.”
The chamber ceiling began collapsing as Dante entered the passage and pulled the metal hatch shut behind them.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then Harper reached backward.
May you like
Found his hand.
And refused to let go.
