Chapter 3 - THE ACCOUNTANT WHO DIED BEFORE BEATRICE
Maggie had bruises on both arms and a cut along her left palm.
Nothing broken.
Nothing internal.
Nothing that would keep her overnight.
Beatrice still refused to leave the emergency department until three separate doctors told her the same thing.
Dante waited.
He did not pace.
Did not interrupt.
Did not tell her they had work to do.
He stood near the hallway with Marco and made certain nobody entered without being checked.
At 1:06 a.m., Maggie finally looked at him.
“So you’re Dante Moretti.”
Dante nodded.
Maggie studied him.
“You’re taller than the newspaper pictures.”
Beatrice closed her eyes.
“Maggie.”
“What? I almost got murdered. I’m allowed one observation.”
Dante’s mouth twitched.
“Reasonable.”
Maggie looked at her sister.
“And he called you his queen?”
Beatrice wished the hospital floor would open.
“It was tactical.”
Maggie grinned despite the bruising.
“Sure.”
Dante actually looked uncomfortable.
That improved Beatrice’s night considerably.
Then Victoria arrived under guard.
A physician had treated her split lip upstairs.
Beatrice’s expression hardened the moment she entered.
“You knew Maggie was in danger.”
“No.”
“You knew someone was threatening me.”
Victoria looked down.
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“A week.”
Beatrice stood.
“A week?”
Dante placed one hand lightly at the small of her back.
Not restraining.
Grounding.
Victoria looked around the private consultation room.
“I didn’t know who they would target.”
“Who is they?”
Victoria swallowed.
“Charles. Malcolm Hart. David Klein.”
Three senior people.
One vice president.
One founding partner.
One controller.
Beatrice felt sick.
“And you?”
Victoria began crying again.
“I helped.”
“Of course you did.”
“I didn’t know it had become this.”
“Don’t.”
Beatrice’s voice sharpened.
“Don’t suddenly grow a conscience because someone hit you.”
Victoria flinched.
Beatrice continued.
“You told me tonight that people only tolerated me because I was useful.”
“I was trying to make you leave.”
“You humiliated me to protect me?”
“I thought if you quit—”
“You thought if you made me feel worthless enough, I would walk away from the evidence.”
Victoria said nothing.
That was exactly what she had thought.
Dante leaned against the wall.
“What is the $4.8 million?”
Victoria looked at him.
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
“People who found things.”
Beatrice’s heartbeat changed.
“What things?”
“The broader accounts.”
Dante’s expression darkened.
“How broad?”
Victoria whispered,
“About sixty-three million.”
Nobody spoke.
Beatrice almost laughed because the number was absurd.
“Sixty-three million dollars?”
Victoria nodded.
“Over five years.”
“From Moretti Holdings?”
“Some. Not all.”
“Then from whom?”
“Twenty-seven client accounts.”
Beatrice sat.
Her mind began working despite everything.
Small transfers.
Duplicated fees.
False consultants.
Inflated vendor payments.
Spread across enough companies that each discrepancy looked survivable.
“Where did it go?”
Victoria looked at Dante.
“Real estate. Offshore holding companies. Private debt funds.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“And the $4.8 million?”
“Payoffs.”
“To auditors?”
“Sometimes.”
“Employees?”
“Yes.”
“Regulators?”
Victoria looked away.
Dante understood.
Beatrice did too.
This was not sloppy theft.
It was an organized scheme.
“Who designed it?” Beatrice asked.
Victoria’s voice became very quiet.
“Elliot Crane.”
Beatrice froze.
She knew the name.
Everybody at Wilkes & Hart did.
Elliot Crane had been the firm’s senior forensic accountant before her.
Brilliant.
Difficult.
Obsessive.
He died eighteen months earlier.
Car accident.
At least that was what the office email had said.
“What does Elliot have to do with this?”
Victoria looked at her.
“He found it.”
Beatrice’s stomach dropped.
“Found the scheme?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Charles paid him.”
“How much?”
“Eight hundred thousand.”
“For silence?”
“Yes.”
“Did he take it?”
“At first.”
Beatrice could barely reconcile the name she remembered with the idea.
Elliot had trained her.
Not warmly.
But thoroughly.
He taught her the rule she still used every day.
If a number looks wrong, ask what story it is trying to hide.
“He changed his mind,” Victoria said.
Beatrice looked up.
“What?”
“Elliot took the money, then kept investigating.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Smart.”
“Not enough.”
Victoria stared at the floor.
“He told Charles he was going to the FBI.”
Maggie stopped smiling.
“And?”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“Three days later, Elliot died.”
Beatrice felt the air leave her lungs.
“No.”
“The accident was investigated.”
“Barely,” Victoria whispered.
“How do you know?”
“Because David knew the detective.”
Dante’s expression became lethal.
Maggie looked at Beatrice.
“You worked with him?”
Beatrice nodded.
Her mind went backward.
Elliot’s empty desk.
The office collection for flowers.
Charles saying, “Terrible tragedy.”
Victoria organizing the memorial lunch.
Beatrice suddenly stood.
“I need my old files.”
Dante looked at her.
“What old files?”
“Elliot’s.”
“They still exist?”
“Maybe.”
She was already reaching for her bag.
“When he died, IT archived his drive. I helped clean the forensic project directory.”
Victoria went pale.
“No.”
Beatrice looked at her.
“What?”
“You can’t go back to the office.”
“Why?”
“Because Charles knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That Elliot hid something.”
Beatrice’s heart began pounding.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Victoria looked genuinely frightened now.
“He told Charles the night before he died, ‘If something happens to me, Gallagher will eventually see it.’”
The room became silent.
Beatrice stared.
“Me?”
Victoria nodded.
“He said your name.”
Dante pushed away from the wall.
“Then Elliot left you evidence.”
“I never found anything.”
“Maybe you didn’t know you were looking.”
Beatrice’s mind raced through shared folders.
Old binders.
Audit notes.
Archived reconciliation templates.
Elliot loved systems.
He distrusted cloud storage.
He had once told Beatrice that the safest hiding place was “inside something too boring for anyone powerful to read.”
Her eyes widened.
“The depreciation schedules.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What?” Maggie asked.
“Elliot made me maintain the old commercial-property depreciation schedules.”
Victoria frowned.
“So?”
“He hated them.”
Beatrice’s mind moved faster.
“He complained constantly that nobody read them.”
Dante understood.
“Which made them perfect.”
Beatrice looked at him.
“There’s a legacy server in the Wilkes & Hart basement.”
Marco immediately shook his head.
“No.”
“We need it.”
“We need a warrant.”
“We don’t have time.”
Dante looked at Beatrice.
“We can get the authorities involved now.”
“And if Charles wipes everything?”
“Marco can preserve external access logs.”
“That’s not the same.”
She looked at Victoria.
“What exactly did Elliot say?”
Victoria tried to remember.
“He said… ‘Tell Gallagher to check the years that don’t depreciate.’”
Beatrice’s pulse stopped for one beat.
That phrase made no accounting sense.
Which meant it was not accounting.
It was a key.
She grabbed a notepad.
“Elliot used four-digit project identifiers.”
Dante watched.
“What are you doing?”
“Years that don’t depreciate.”
She wrote:
2008.
2009.
2010.
2011.
Leap years.
Maggie stared.
“You got that from one sentence?”
Beatrice was already moving.
“Elliot used leap years as temporary passwords because he said nobody remembered them.”
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“You knew this?”
“He changed them every quarter.”
She looked toward Marco.
“If the archive still exists, I can get in.”
Marco received a call.
He listened.
Then looked at Dante.
“Wilkes & Hart offices just lost external connectivity.”
Beatrice went cold.
“They’re wiping.”
Marco nodded.
“Someone is.”
Dante looked at Beatrice.
“You’re not going there.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“If Elliot left evidence specifically for me, I may be the only person who knows how to open it.”
“Then Marco brings the server to you.”
“That could destroy evidence.”
Dante stared.
Beatrice stared back.
Finally he exhaled.
“You stay beside me.”
“Fine.”
“Not behind.”
That surprised her.
Dante continued.
“Beside.”
At 2:02 a.m., they entered the Wilkes & Hart building with federal investigators Marco had contacted through an attorney.
The office floor was dark.
Beatrice’s desk had been destroyed.
Drawers open.
Computer missing.
Documents scattered.
Her chair overturned.
Then they reached Elliot’s archived directory.
The legacy server still ran.
Barely.
Beatrice entered the password.
2020.
A hidden partition opened.
One folder appeared.
Its name was simple.
BEA.
Her hands began shaking.
Inside was a video.
Elliot Crane appeared on screen.
Alive.
Exhausted.
Terrified.
“If you’re watching this, Beatrice…”
He looked over his shoulder.
“…then I was right about you.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You notice things.”
A pause.
“So notice this.”
He held up a ledger.
“There’s someone inside Moretti Holdings helping them.”
Dante became perfectly still.
Elliot continued.
“And when you find out who it is…”
May you like
His face darkened.
“Do not tell Dante Moretti until you know whether he already knows.”
