Chapter 7 - The Safe House
We moved before dawn.
Not to Dominic’s lake house. Not to our home. Marco took us to a brick building above an old printing shop on the West Side that looked abandoned from the street and had steel doors behind every hallway.
“This is a safe house?” I asked.
Dominic nodded. “My father used it during federal investigations.”
“Comforting.”
Rebecca stayed too. She refused to leave me alone with him.
By seven, Marco had three laptops open on the dining table. Peter Kline’s death had changed everything. Police had not released the cause, but someone had wiped his company phone remotely fourteen minutes after his body was found.
“Only four people had that permission,” Marco said.
“Name them,” I said.
“Dominic. Peter. Victor. Cassandra.”
Dominic looked at him. “Cassandra never had wipe authority.”
Marco turned the screen.
“She does now.”
The authorization had been approved using Dominic’s digital signature.
Dominic swore under his breath.
Rebecca leaned closer. “Can those signatures be cloned?”
“Yes,” Marco said. “If someone had access to his hardware token.”
I looked at Dominic. “Who has access?”
“My executive assistant. My security chief. Me.”
Marco’s expression hardened. “Not me.”
“No one said it was.”
Before they could start arguing, I remembered something.
“At the gala, Cassandra used your phone.”
Dominic turned to me.
“She said hers died. You handed it to her near the coat room.”
He stared at the table.
“For how long?” Marco asked.
“Maybe two minutes.”
“That’s enough.”
Rebecca exhaled. “So she steals his credentials, plants records, frames him with a dead accountant, and pressures Ava into separation. Why?”
Dominic looked at the trust documents.
“To hand Victor the proxy.”
A loud thud came from downstairs.
Everyone froze.
Another thud.
Marco reached under his jacket.
The lights went out.
Then a woman’s voice came through the dark hallway.
“Ava?”
May you like
I knew that voice.
It was Cassandra.
