Chapter 3 - EIGHT DAYS LATER
Eight days after I hid beneath Dante Varga’s table, I discovered there were worse things than being hunted by a man who hated losing control.
There was learning someone you trusted had handed him the map.
I was sitting at a breakfast counter in an apartment I technically was not supposed to know belonged to Dante when his security specialist placed a laptop in front of me.
“Don’t touch anything yet,” Gabriel Stone said.
Gabriel looked like someone had taken an accountant, put him through military training, and forgotten to teach him how to smile afterward.
I looked at Dante.
“Does everybody who works for you issue commands before coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Charming organization.”
“I’ll update the handbook.”
For eight days, Dante had kept his promise.
Jared had not reached me again.
That did not mean my life had improved.
Northline had suspended me forty-eight hours after the restaurant incident.
Officially, it was temporary administrative leave while the company investigated “unauthorized possession of proprietary freight records.”
Unofficially, somebody wanted me away from the audit.
My company email stopped working.
My badge stopped opening doors.
My direct deposit had been “delayed.”
And Evelyn Hart—the woman who had once told me I deserved to feel safe at work—had called exactly once.
I had not answered.
Gabriel rotated the laptop toward me.
“We subpoenaed nothing,” he said. “Before you ask.”
“Good start.”
“The access records were provided voluntarily by someone at Northline who apparently dislikes Evelyn Hart.”
“Who?”
“We’re still protecting that person.”
I frowned.
Dante sat opposite me with coffee.
“Read.”
The screen showed a Northline security access report.
Employee lookup history.
HR database sessions.
Executive credential activity.
I found my name.
Then froze.
KHLOE BENNETT — EMERGENCY CONTACT / SECURITY PROFILE
Accessed 6:42 p.m.
The night of Arthur Bell’s retirement dinner.
My stomach tightened.
“Who opened it?”
Gabriel tapped the next column.
EH-EXEC-02.
I looked up.
“Evelyn?”
“Her office credential.”
“That doesn’t prove she used it.”
“No,” Dante said.
Gabriel changed windows.
A building entry log appeared.
Evelyn Hart’s executive floor badge had opened the twenty-third-floor records room at 6:37 p.m.
Five minutes before my profile was accessed.
Then my corporate calendar was opened.
The restaurant reservation had been attached to Arthur Bell’s retirement event.
At 6:48, a personal number called Jared Mason.
The call lasted three minutes and fourteen seconds.
I stared at the screen.
“How do you know it was Jared?”
Gabriel displayed phone records obtained from Jared’s complaint file after police detained him.
Same number.
Same time.
My hands went numb.
Eight days.
For eight days, I had tried to find an innocent explanation.
A compromised login.
A careless HR assistant.
A coincidence.
There wasn’t one.
Dante leaned his forearms against the counter.
“Now we know how he found you.”
“But not why.”
His eyes stayed on mine.
“That’s what your freight audit is going to tell us.”
I stood.
“I don’t have the audit.”
“You memorized enough of it.”
“I memorized irregularities. Not six months of shipment data.”
“You have backups.”
I looked at him.
His expression did not change.
“You’re an auditor,” he said. “You absolutely have backups.”
“Northline policy prohibits taking files offsite.”
“Khloe.”
I folded my arms.
“There may be notes.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
Dante did not bother hiding his.
“Where?”
“Encrypted cloud folder.”
“You told the company you deleted it?”
“I told the company I didn’t possess proprietary freight records.”
“That is impressively specific.”
“I’m an auditor.”
“I’m beginning to understand the problem.”
Twenty minutes later, my notes covered the entire dining table.
Printed invoices.
Container movement reports.
Fuel logs.
Rail interchange charges.
I had started noticing the irregularities three weeks earlier.
At first, they were small.
Duplicate detention fees.
Fuel surcharges applied to electric equipment.
Weekend labor charges for facilities closed on weekends.
Then I found phantom mileage.
A Varga Freight chassis supposedly moving cargo from Newark to Charleston while simultaneously appearing in Ohio.
One piece of equipment.
Two states.
Same hour.
Impossible.
When I expanded the sample, I found forty-seven containers.
Every shipment used Varga identifiers.
Every invoice went through a vendor called Greyhaven Maritime Services.
Every payment was approved above my authorization level.
Dante studied the vendor name.
“Never heard of it.”
“Northline paid Greyhaven. Greyhaven allegedly paid Varga.”
“But Varga never received the money.”
“So where did it go?”
Gabriel answered.
“We checked the company registration.”
He turned the laptop.
Greyhaven Maritime Services had been incorporated in Delaware eighteen months earlier.
Its registered agent managed more than two hundred shell companies.
No listed employees.
No terminal property.
No trucking authority.
No physical office beyond a mail drop.
I felt the old rush I always experienced when numbers stopped being boring and started telling on people.
“Somebody created a vendor.”
“Yes,” Dante said.
“Then inserted legitimate Varga equipment numbers so the shipments would survive casual review.”
“Yes.”
“And whoever did it had access to both Northline’s payment system and your fleet records.”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“Yes.”
I leaned back.
“So you have a leak too.”
He said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Gabriel opened another report.
“There’s more.”
I hated when people said that.
He displayed scanned invoices.
I recognized the authorizations immediately.
Executive approval code: EH-44.
Evelyn Hart.
“She approved them?”
“Twenty-nine personally,” Gabriel said. “The rest were approved using subordinate credentials during hours when those employees weren’t logged into the building.”
Dante looked at me.
“Your boss.”
I shook my head.
“She’s chief operating officer. She signs hundreds of things. Someone could have routed them through her.”
“Still defending her?”
“I’m auditing. Not defending.”
“Those aren’t always different.”
I ignored him and examined dates.
Then something caught my eye.
The first fraudulent shipment appeared four days after Northline acquired Harbor Meridian Warehousing.
I remembered the deal.
Everybody did.
It had nearly doubled Northline’s port capacity.
Evelyn had personally championed it.
I searched my notes.
“Harbor Meridian.”
Gabriel leaned over.
“What?”
“Northline bought it eighteen months ago.”
“When Greyhaven was created,” Dante said.
“Yes.”
I began pulling acquisition reports.
The purchase price had been publicly announced as $180 million.
But internal insurance documentation valued the facilities at barely $117 million.
“Sixty-three million,” I whispered.
Dante understood first.
“Someone overpaid.”
“Or pretended to.”
The room became silent.
If part of the acquisition price had been diverted, the phantom freight payments might not be the main crime.
They might be covering cash-flow holes created by something much larger.
My phone rang.
Arthur Bell.
The retiring auditor whose dinner had placed me in the restaurant.
I grabbed it.
“Arthur?”
No answer.
Only breathing.
“Arthur?”
Then his voice came through, low and hurried.
“Khloe, listen carefully.”
I stood.
“Where are you?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What happened?”
“I should have told you before the dinner.”
Dante was already moving closer.
Arthur continued.
“The freight audit wasn’t yours.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I started it nine months ago.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Arthur had assigned me those files.
Called them routine.
Told me they would be good experience.
“Why did you give it to me?”
“Because they were watching me.”
“Who?”
A noise sounded on his end.
A door.
Arthur’s breath caught.
“They know about the copy.”
“What copy?”
“The one I gave you.”
“You didn’t give me anything.”
“Yes, I did.”
I looked toward Dante.
“When?”
“At dinner.”
“I would remember.”
“The retirement gift.”
My eyes moved across the apartment.
My damaged purse sat on a chair.
Beside it was the small gift bag Arthur had handed me before dessert.
I had barely opened it.
Inside had been an antique brass cargo seal mounted on a wooden base.
A joke for an auditor retiring another auditor’s workload.
I walked toward it.
“Arthur, what’s inside?”
“The reason Evelyn sent Jared.”
My blood turned cold.
A crash exploded through the phone.
Then Arthur shouted.
The line died.
I grabbed the brass freight seal from the gift bag.
Dante took it from me, turned it once, and noticed the base was heavier than it should have been.
He twisted the bottom.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was a red USB drive.
And suddenly I knew why Jared had chased me through three blocks of rain.
He had never been sent to bring me back.
May you like
He had been sent to bring that drive back.
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