Chapter 5 - WHAT THE HOUSE COST
Dominic ordered the household staff into the kitchen.
Hannah caught his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
“There’s a leak.”
“And there are people downstairs who need their jobs. You scare them enough, they’ll tell you anything.”
He nearly told her she didn’t understand his world.
Then he looked at the cleaning cloth still tucked into her pocket.
She understood the part of his world he never saw.
He let Marco review access records instead.
Hannah called her sitter’s hospital room.
No answer.
She called the nurses’ station.
When she hung up, her mouth had tightened.
“Mrs. Alvarez was hit by a car outside her building. The driver never stopped.”
“When?”
“Eleven days ago.”
The same day Hannah began bringing Grace to work.
Dominic felt the pieces shift.
Someone had known about the child before she crawled into his office.
Celia found Ada’s address through an old benefits file.
A narrow brick house near the port.
Dominic took Marco and Hannah. Grace stayed with the household cook, Rosa, after Hannah checked the room herself and made Dominic leave two guards outside.
Ada answered the door with the chain on.
The moment she saw Dominic, she tried to close it.
Hannah stepped into view.
“Julian sent us.”
Ada’s hand stopped.
“He’s dead.”
“I know.”
Hannah held up the folded list.
Ada looked over her shoulder before letting them inside.
Her living room smelled like coffee and furniture polish. Three boxes sat beside the stairs.
“You’re moving?” Dominic asked.
“My landlord sold the place. Suddenly.”
“Who bought it?”
Ada handed him a notice.
The purchasing company appeared in Julian’s payment records.
Dominic lowered the paper.
Ada laughed without humor.
“Your people don’t always break windows, Mr. Caruso. Sometimes they raise the rent.”
Hannah watched him absorb that.
Ada brought out an old payroll folder.
“Julian found workers getting paid who didn’t exist. Then he found men who existed getting paid not to talk.”
“About what?”
“Containers that never went through the normal inspection line.”
“What was in them?”
“I didn’t open them. Neither did your brother at first.”
“At first?”
Ada looked toward the front window.
“He called me the night he finally did.”
“What did he say?”
“That Vincent wasn’t stealing from your company.”
She pushed a photograph across the table.
Julian stood inside a warehouse beside stacks of opened crates.
Each crate held tightly packed bundles of cash.
“He was running another company inside it.”
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Outside, a car door slammed.
Ada whispered, “And he knows I kept copies.”
