Chapter 6 - Thirty-One Victims
Abby wanted to go home immediately.
Julian refused to let her go alone.
She almost argued.
Then she remembered the man inside the elevator.
She remembered Voss asking Thomas about Caleb.
She accepted the protection.
When they arrived in Queens, the apartment door hung crooked from the frame.
Caleb stood in the hallway with two police officers.
He looked furious rather than frightened now.
Abby hugged him before he could object.
“I’m fine.”
“You called me breathing like somebody stabbed you.”
“I was surprised.”
“You were terrified.”
“Briefly terrified.”
The officers confirmed that whoever entered had ignored electronics.
Laptop untouched.
Television untouched.
Cash jar untouched.
Only Marianne’s old correspondence box was missing.
Julian walked slowly through the apartment.
No drawers had been dumped.
No furniture overturned.
This had been a targeted search.
Abby noticed his expression.
“What?”
“Whoever did this knew exactly where the letters were.”
Caleb nodded.
“They went straight to Mom’s closet.”
Abby frowned.
“Only family knew we kept them there.”
Julian looked at her.
“Or someone who had been here before.”
Abby remembered Naomi Reed’s mysterious caller.
Someone inside Cross Tower had given Naomi her phone number.
Maybe the same person knew more about the Mercer family than they should.
Julian arranged for a private security team unaffiliated with Voss to remain outside the building.
Abby did not like it.
She liked the alternative less.
By dawn, none of them had slept.
Caleb finally disappeared into his room.
Abby sat at the kitchen table with Julian.
Pearl lay between them.
The microfilm had been hidden separately in Abby’s shoe.
Julian stared at it.
“If Celeste stole charitable funds in 2004, there should be accounting traces.”
“Twenty-two years later?”
“Large transfers leave records.”
“Unless your family destroyed them.”
He did not defend them.
That was new.
Abby made coffee.
Julian accepted a chipped mug.
“You hate this coffee.”
“I have had worse.”
“Liar.”
“Yes.”
They drank in silence.
Then Abby’s phone rang.
Naomi Reed again.
Abby answered immediately.
“Naomi.”
“Are you safe?”
“Someone broke into my apartment.”
Naomi became silent.
“Was it Voss?”
“I don’t know.”
Abby glanced at Julian.
“He is here.”
Naomi’s breathing changed.
“Who?”
“Julian Cross.”
“Why?”
“Because he finally realized his security director may have been lying to him for years.”
Julian gave Abby a look.
She ignored him.
Naomi said.
“You told him?”
“He knows about you.”
“Abigail.”
“Naomi, how many others are there?”
Silence followed.
Then Naomi said.
“Fourteen that I found.”
Julian sat straighter.
Abby put the call on speaker.
“Fourteen employees?”
“Yes.”
“All accused of theft?”
“Some theft.”
“Some fraud.”
“One driver was accused of selling Julian’s schedule to photographers.”
“A chef supposedly stole wine.”
“A personal assistant was accused of taking jewelry.”
Julian’s face changed with each example.
He knew the cases.
He had signed the terminations.
Naomi continued.
“Most were offered the same deal.”
“What deal?”
“Confess.”
“Resign.”
“Stay quiet.”
“And no police.”
Julian whispered.
“Why would Voss do that?”
Naomi heard him.
“Because you never checked.”
The words landed harder than shouting.
Julian said nothing.
Naomi continued.
“You wanted dishonest employees removed.”
“Voss gave you dishonest employees.”
Abby frowned.
“But what did he gain?”
“Sometimes money.”
“How?”
“Employees who signed confessions surrendered unpaid compensation.”
“Bonuses.”
“Severance.”
“Some repaid supposedly stolen property.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“That money should have gone to Cross Residential.”
“It did.”
Naomi paused.
“Then portions disappeared through security-recovery accounts.”
Julian stood.
“Who authorized those accounts?”
“I don’t know.”
Abby looked at him.
He did.
Or at least he suspected.
“Voss?”
Julian asked.
“Maybe.”
Naomi lowered her voice.
“There’s another name.”
“Who?”
“Leonard Vale.”
Julian stopped moving.
Abby saw his reaction.
“Who is Leonard Vale?”
Julian answered quietly.
“My chief financial officer.”
Naomi continued.
“Every recovery account I traced eventually touched something controlled by Vale.”
Julian looked toward the window.
Leonard Vale had worked beside him for thirteen years.
He had attended family funerals.
He had served as Julian’s closest adviser after Gideon died.
Abby watched another piece of Julian’s certainty crack.
Naomi said.
“I sent everything I collected to a journalist last month.”
Julian turned.
“What journalist?”
“Her name is Lena Ortiz.”
“Why hasn’t she published?”
“She disappeared.”
Abby felt a chill.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“She stopped answering messages.”
Julian took out his phone.
“When did you last speak with her?”
“Seventeen days ago.”
“Where does she work?”
“Independent.”
“She used to be with the Herald.”
Julian typed the name.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Abby asked.
“There’s a missing-person bulletin.”
Naomi went silent.
Abby stared at Julian’s phone.
Lena Ortiz.
Age thirty-six.
Last seen leaving a parking garage in Brooklyn.
Her car was found abandoned two days later.
Abby closed her eyes.
This was no longer an employment scandal.
People might have died because of it.
Naomi whispered.
“I shouldn’t have called.”
“Wait.”
But the line disconnected.
Julian immediately ordered his legal team to preserve every security-recovery account from the previous ten years.
He did not tell Leonard Vale why.
Then Abby asked.
“Can your legal team be trusted?”
Julian looked at her.
“Yesterday I would have said yes.”
“And today?”
He stared into the coffee.
“Today I am discovering the answer to that question may be expensive.”
Abby almost laughed.
“You still talk like a billionaire.”
He looked up.
“Meaning?”
“You measure betrayal in dollars.”
Julian’s expression changed.
“What would you measure it in?”
“Names.”
He frowned.
Abby counted on her fingers.
“Naomi Reed.”
“My mother.”
“Lena Ortiz.”
“Fourteen employees.”
“Possibly Elena Torres.”
She looked directly at him.
“You don’t have a financial problem.”
“You have a cemetery of people nobody listened to.”
Julian sat very still.
Then he nodded.
“You’re right.”
It was the first time Abby heard him say those words without resistance.
Later that morning, Julian arranged for the microfilm to be processed by a retired forensic archivist named Samuel Price.
Samuel worked from a private lab in Connecticut.
No Cross systems.
No Cross employees.
They drove there without informing anyone except Julian’s personal attorney.
Three hours later, Samuel projected the first scanned images onto a large screen.
Abby’s breath stopped.
Accounting ledgers.
Bank transfers.
Donation records.
Photographs of handwritten notes.
Celeste Cross’s name appeared repeatedly.
So did Leonard Vale’s.
Julian stared.
“Vale was twenty-six.”
Samuel enlarged one page.
A transfer of $1.4 million from the Cross Children’s Medical Fund to a holding company.
The beneficial owner was hidden.
Another page identified it.
CV Holdings.
Celeste Victoria Cross.
Abby looked at Julian.
“This is enough.”
“No.”
His voice was flat.
“Why not?”
“It proves misuse in 2004.”
“It does not prove anything current.”
Samuel changed images.
More transfers.
Dates extended into 2005.
Then the screen displayed a handwritten memorandum.
Julian leaned forward.
He recognized Gideon’s writing.
CELESTE MUST RETURN FUNDS.
VOSS HAS CONFIRMED M. MERCER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR BRACELET.
DO NOT INVOLVE POLICE UNTIL BOARD REVIEW.
Abby stared at the words.
Voss knew.
Twenty-two years ago, Martin Voss had known Marianne was innocent.
Yet her file still called her a thief.
Julian whispered.
“He knew.”
Abby looked at him.
“Your father knew too.”
“He planned to clear her.”
“But he didn’t.”
Julian said nothing.
Samuel advanced to the next image.
It was a photograph of another document.
A life-insurance policy.
The insured person was Elena Torres.
The beneficiary was a company Abby did not recognize.
Julian did.
His face changed.
“What?”
Abby asked.
“Vale Security Consulting.”
“Leonard?”
“No.”
Julian’s voice became colder.
“Martin Voss’s former company.”
Samuel enlarged the signature.
The policy had been purchased three weeks before Elena Torres died.
Abby felt sick.
“How much?”
Samuel read.
“Two million dollars.”
Silence filled the lab.
Julian stared at the screen.
A woman had discovered stolen charitable funds.
Weeks later, someone connected to Martin Voss took out a two-million-dollar policy on her life.
Then she died in a car accident.
Abby whispered.
“This is murder.”
Julian shook his head slowly.
“It is evidence of motive.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Making ugly things sound clean.”
He looked at her.
She pointed at the screen.
“A woman died.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
“A woman may have been murdered.”
“And my mother knew.”
“Yes.”
“And your father buried it.”
His face hardened.
“Yes.”
Abby looked back at Marianne’s evidence.
For years, she had thought her mother’s greatest fear was dying from cancer before her children were ready.
Now she understood Marianne had spent half her life carrying another fear entirely.
Samuel interrupted.
“There’s something else.”
He opened the final scanned image.
It was not an accounting record.
It was a photograph.
A young Martin Voss stood beside a damaged black sedan.
Abby leaned closer.
“What am I looking at?”
Julian’s face became pale.
“Elena Torres’s car.”
Samuel zoomed in.
On the rear of the photograph, Marianne had written a date.
The day before Elena died.
Underneath it were five words.
Voss cut the brake line.
Abby stared.
Julian did not move.
Then his phone rang.
Leonard Vale.
Julian looked at Abby.
She looked at the screen.
“Answer.”
Julian did.
“Leonard.”
The CFO sounded cheerful.
“Julian, I’m sorry to bother you.”
“I’m reviewing some irregular security accounts.”
A pause.
“What sort of irregularities?”
Julian’s eyes stayed on the photograph.
“Old ones.”
Leonard’s tone changed almost imperceptibly.
“How old?”
“Twenty-two years.”
Silence.
Then Leonard laughed.
“That sounds archaeological.”
Julian’s voice remained calm.
“Do you remember Marianne Mercer?”
Abby watched the color leave Julian’s face as Leonard answered.
“Yes.”
There was no hesitation.
No confusion.
No question.
Just one simple word.
Yes.
Julian slowly turned toward Abby.
Leonard Vale had been twenty-six years old when her mother was framed.
May you like
And somehow, twenty-two years later, he remembered a housekeeper Julian himself had forgotten.
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