Chapter 8 - THE MONEY JULIAN TOOK
Hannah went pale.
Dominic lowered the phone.
“What money?”
She sat down.
“Julian brought a bag to my apartment the night he came back.”
“How much?”
“I didn’t count it.”
“Hannah.”
“A lot.”
Celia folded her arms.
“You understand how this looks.”
Hannah looked at her.
“Yes. Poor woman. Rich dead man. Convenient baby.”
“I’m trying to protect—”
“No. You’re trying to decide whether I’m the cheapest person to blame.”
Dominic set the phone facedown.
“Where is the bag?”
“I made him take it away.”
“Why?”
“Because he wouldn’t tell me whose it was.”
Her eyes filled, but she kept speaking.
“We fought. He said we could disappear. I told him I wasn’t raising a child on money somebody would come looking for.”
Dominic could hear Julian in it. The little brother who always believed one reckless move would repair the damage of the last.
“He promised to give it back,” Hannah said. “Then he left.”
Celia spoke softly.
“Vincent could claim Julian was stealing from the organization.”
“He was,” Dominic said.
Hannah looked wounded.
Dominic opened the payment folder.
Three transfers had been interrupted shortly before Julian’s staged death.
The amounts matched withdrawals recorded under an internal security fund.
“He took evidence,” Dominic said. “Maybe he took money too. We don’t get to decide he was innocent of everything because we loved him.”
That hurt her.
It hurt him too.
They drove to Dock Nine with two guards Dominic had hired that afternoon through an outside firm.
Hannah insisted on coming.
“I know his handwriting. I know what he called things. Stop treating me like the part you put away.”
The terminal stood dark beside the river.
Inside, the old counting room smelled of damp paper.
Empty shelves.
Broken boxes.
A shredder still warm.
Dominic crouched beside a steel cabinet bolted to the floor. As children, he and Julian had sorted coins on top of it while their father counted cash.
The lower drawer stuck.
He pulled harder.
A packet had been taped beneath it.
Original invoices.
Bank deposits.
Photographs.
Then lights snapped on beyond the glass wall.
Vincent stood in the loading bay.
Beside him was Ada, one hand clamped over her bleeding eyebrow.
A man held her by the arm.
Vincent pointed at the packet.
“Put my property down.”
Hannah stepped toward the glass.
“You took her from the hospital?”
May you like
Vincent smiled.
“No,” he said. “Someone was kind enough to tell us when she’d be discharged.”
