Chapter 9 - THE FIRST HONEST CALL
Dominic stayed still.
“How much?”
Vincent shook his head.
“You think everything can be bought because I made sure it usually could.”
“Let Ada leave.”
“Put down the records.”
Hannah stood beside the fire alarm.
Dominic saw her glance at it.
Saw her understand the same thing he did.
They needed witnesses.
Noise.
People Vincent hadn’t paid.
Dominic placed the packet on the cabinet.
“Come get it.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
“You sound like your father.”
“My father trusted you.”
“And he died rich.”
Hannah pulled the alarm.
The terminal erupted.
Bells hammered through the warehouse. Red lights flashed over the loading doors.
The man holding Ada turned his head.
She drove her heel into his foot and pulled free.
Dominic shoved the cabinet toward Vincent’s approaching guard. Hannah caught Ada as she stumbled through the side door.
One of Dominic’s hired guards called emergency services over his radio.
The other shouted for them to keep moving.
They reached the parking lot as a forklift roared out of the loading bay.
It struck Dominic’s car broadside.
Metal folded with a sound Hannah would remember for years.
Dominic pulled both women behind a concrete barrier.
He could have ordered his guards to go after Vincent.
He could have turned the lot into the kind of place Hannah had feared her whole life.
Instead, he dialed a number Celia had once told him never to call directly.
Federal Agent Eleanor Brooks.
She had investigated his company for three years.
When she answered, he said, “My name is Dominic Caruso. I’m at Dock Nine. There’s a kidnapped witness here, and someone just tried to kill us.”
“Is this a joke?”
“I wish it were.”
Sirens rose in the distance.
Vincent’s car sped through the far gate.
Hannah looked down.
The packet was gone.
She had dropped it while catching Ada.
Through the open loading doors, smoke began to roll across the floor.
Dominic watched the counting room disappear behind it.
Years of evidence.
His brother’s last attempt to tell the truth.
Brooks arrived before the fire crews finished connecting their hoses.
She approached Dominic with her hand near her holster.
“Turn around.”
Hannah stepped forward.
“He called you.”
Brooks looked at her.
“And now I need to know why.”
As Dominic placed his hands behind his back, Hannah reached into her uniform pocket.
Inside was one original invoice.
She had taken it from the packet before the lights came on.
May you like
At the bottom was a name nobody had said all night.
CELIA WARD.
