Victoria's flight landed at LaGuardia at 6:47 AM. She hadn't slept. The woman next to her had snored. The coffee on the plane had tasted like burnt plastic.
She took a cab to Meridian Group, walked through the security turnstiles, and rode the elevator to the forty-seventh floor. The glass box was exactly as she'd left it. Laptop open. Sticky notes untouched. Cold coffee still on the desk.
She threw the coffee away and brewed a fresh pot in the break room. Then she sat down and waited.
At 7:58 AM, Nathaniel walked in.
He looked different today. His suit was charcoal, his tie dark blue. But there was something off about him. His eyes were tired. His jaw was tight. He hadn't slept either.
"You look terrible," she said.
"So do you."
She poured him a cup of coffee and pushed it across the desk. He took it without thanking her.
"Alice May," he said. "You believe her?"
"I believe someone threatened her. I believe she was scared enough to quit her job and move across the country. I believe Meridian's HR department lied about the security cameras."
Nathaniel set down the coffee. "HR said the cameras were broken?"
"Conveniently."
He rubbed his temples. "I'll have my legal team look into it."
"Your legal team is part of the problem."
"They're not."
"They work for you. The same you who didn't know about a Luxembourg account bleeding money for three years. Forgive me if I don't trust their judgment."
Nathaniel's jaw tightened. "What do you want me to do, Victoria? Fire everyone and start over?"
"I want you to stop pretending you're not involved."
The words hung in the air between them. Nathaniel stared at her. His expression was unreadable, but his hands—resting on the arms of his chair—were perfectly still.
"I'm not involved," he said quietly.
"You signed the report that destroyed my company."
"That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
He stood up. Walked to the window. Turned his back to her. She'd seen him do this before. It was his tell. When he didn't want to be seen, he turned away.
"The money," he said. "The missing money. I'm not involved. I didn't know about it. I didn't authorize it. And I've spent two years trying to figure out who did."
"Then why didn't you go to the authorities?"
"Because the authorities would ask questions I couldn't answer."
"Like what?"
He turned to face her. His expression was raw in a way she'd never seen before.
"Like why my CFO died of a heart attack at forty-nine. Like why his medical records are sealed. Like why someone broke into his apartment the night after his funeral and took his hard drives."
Victoria felt the air leave her lungs.
"Someone broke into his apartment?"
"The police said it was a robbery. Nothing was taken except a laptop and a backup drive. The laptop was found in a dumpster two blocks away. The drive was never recovered."
"And you think the drive had evidence?"
"I know it did. He told me before he died. He said, 'Nathaniel, if something happens to me, don't trust anyone.' I thought he was being paranoid."
"Maybe he wasn't."
Nathaniel shook his head slowly. "No. He wasn't."
Victoria looked at the laptop on her desk. The map of transactions glowed on the screen. 2.4 million dollars. Every month. For three years.
"Someone killed him," she said. It wasn't a question.
"I don't know that."
"What else could it be? A healthy man, forty-nine years old, drops dead of a heart attack the same week he tells you not to trust anyone? And then his hard drives are stolen?"
Nathaniel didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Victoria stood up. "I need to talk to his widow."
"Good luck. She won't see you."
"She'll see me if I tell her I know about the hard drives."
Nathaniel stared at her for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly.
"I'll make the call."