Chapter 3 - The Second Identification
By eight the next morning Gregory had left for Archer Properties.
At eight fifteen Nicole drove Emma to school.
At eight forty she purchased a prepaid phone with cash.
At nine thirty she left her regular phone in a grocery-store locker.
At ten exactly she arrived at the abandoned Briar Road greenhouse.
Raymond emerged from behind a row of dead hydrangeas.
For one second Nicole forgot every question.
She simply stared at her brother.
He was alive.
His dark hair was shorter than it had been three days earlier. A faint bruise ran beneath his jaw. The thin pale scar on his right cheek—the scar Emma had mentioned—was unmistakable.
Nicole crossed the distance between them and slapped him.
Raymond did not react.
Then she threw her arms around him.
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
She pulled away.
“Who is in the casket?”
Raymond’s expression closed.
“You don’t need that answer yet.”
Nicole slapped him again.
This time harder.
“I stood ten feet from his body.”
“I know.”
“You made me sign papers.”
“I didn’t make you sign anything.”
“You let me.”
“Yes.”
The admission was worse than an excuse.
Raymond walked toward a rusted workbench and placed a folder on it.
Inside were bank statements.
Wire-transfer records.
Copies of corporate resolutions.
Nicole recognized Archer Properties letterhead.
“What is Northstar Holdings?” she asked.
“A shell company.”
“Whose?”
“That’s what I was trying to prove.”
She flipped through the pages.
Seven transfers.
Then eleven.
Then dozens.
Amounts ranging from forty-eight thousand dollars to nine hundred thousand.
Total transfers exceeded seven million dollars.
Nicole’s stomach turned.
“Why am I looking at this?”
Raymond tapped one document.
At the bottom was an electronic authorization.
NICOLE HART.
Her name.
Her credential.
Her approval.
“That’s not possible.”
“You approved a refinancing package eighteen months ago.”
“Yes.”
“Buried in the documents was permission to establish an intercompany reserve account.”
“I never saw this.”
“I believe you.”
Nicole looked up.
“Who created it?”
Raymond held her gaze.
“Gregory.”
She laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
“No.”
“Nicole—”
“No.”
“He controlled the finance platform.”
“He’s my husband.”
“He’s also the company’s chief financial officer.”
“He would not steal seven million dollars.”
“Then explain the transfers.”
“There’s an explanation.”
“There always is at first.”
Nicole stepped away.
“Is this why someone tried to kill you?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Raymond looked toward the broken greenhouse windows.
“Three weeks ago I hired an investigator.”
The answer surprised her.
“Why not call the police?”
“Because numbers can look suspicious without being criminal. I needed proof Gregory personally controlled Northstar.”
“Did you get it?”
“Part of it.”
“What happened?”
Raymond’s jaw tightened.
“The investigator and I met at Warehouse Fourteen Tuesday night.”
Nicole knew the property. Archer Properties owned three old industrial buildings near the river.
“Someone came.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see his face clearly.”
“What happened?”
“A fight. Then a fire.”
Nicole felt cold.
“You escaped.”
Raymond looked at her.
“One of us did.”
The words landed slowly.
Nicole stared at him.
“The man in the casket.”
Raymond looked away.
“Was your investigator?”
He said nothing.
“That’s who he is?”
“I said too much already.”
“Raymond!”
“I need confirmation before I tell you anything else.”
She backed away.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You knowingly let another family bury the wrong man.”
“If Gregory learns I survived, he destroys everything and finishes what he started.”
“You don’t know Gregory started the fire.”
“No.”
“Then stop saying it as if you do.”
“I know someone moved money using your credentials. I know someone knew about my investigation. I know someone locked the side exit of that warehouse. And I know Gregory called the county medical examiner before the sheriff called you.”
Nicole froze.
“What?”
“I checked the phone logs.”
“How?”
“My investigator did.”
Raymond handed her another sheet.
A call from Gregory’s office to Assistant Medical Examiner Paul Renner.
Tuesday, 11:43 p.m.
The sheriff did not contact Nicole until 12:21 a.m.
Thirty-eight minutes later.
Nicole felt the ground beneath her shift.
“Why would Gregory call him?”
“That’s what you need to ask yourself.”
Raymond gathered the papers.
Nicole stopped him.
“No more secrets.”
His eyes hardened.
“I’m alive because of secrets.”
“And somebody else is dead because of them.”
The sentence struck him.
Nicole saw guilt flash across his face.
Before she could press further, a car engine sounded outside.
Raymond turned sharply.
Nicole looked through the cracked glass.
A black SUV rolled slowly past the greenhouse entrance.
It did not stop.
It did not need to.
Nicole knew the vehicle.
Gregory’s company security department used three identical SUVs.
Raymond grabbed her arm.
“You were followed.”
“I left my phone behind.”
“It wasn’t your phone.”
“Then what?”
Raymond stared toward the disappearing vehicle.
“Your car.”
And Nicole suddenly remembered something Gregory had insisted on installing after Emma started kindergarten.
May you like
A family GPS safety system.
Registered entirely in Gregory’s name.
