Chapter 8 - Burn the Evidence
I answered while kicking the chained door.
"Marcus," Victor said. "You really should have taken the day off."
June heard him and went rigid.
"Open the door," I said.
"I can't help you with every bad decision."
"If June dies in here, you think this disappears?"
"People believe what paperwork tells them. You taught me that."
The line went dead.
Rachel coughed. "Less talking. More escaping."
I used a fire extinguisher to smash the narrow wired-glass panel beside the door. The first swing cracked it. The second broke through. I reached outside, found the chain, and pulled until the jagged frame cut my forearm.
June grabbed the extinguisher and hammered the lock from the other side.
It snapped.
We stumbled into the parking lot seconds before part of the roof collapsed.
Fire crews arrived. So did police.
This time, Rachel made the call before I could object.
We gave statements and handed over copies of the letters we had photographed in the SUV before entering the warehouse. The original box was scorched but not destroyed.
Victor had made his first serious mistake.
He assumed we had only one copy.
At midnight, Nolan sent another discovery.
"I traced Evelyn Memorial Holdings. The money moves through Northline, then into a freight consulting company called Lake Crown Strategies."
I knew the name.
Lake Crown had been approved as a vendor by the board six years earlier.
"Who owns it?"
"A trust."
"Whose?"
"Stephen Cross is trustee. But the beneficiary is Victor Lang's daughter."
Rachel whistled softly.
June looked at me. "So this whole thing was inheritance for his family. Paid for by people like me."
"Partly."
Nolan wasn't finished.
"There's another transfer stream. Much larger. It started after Evelyn died."
He sent the destination account.
BLACKWELL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION.
My charitable foundation.
I stared at the screen.
"That account is audited every year."
"The public account is. This is a duplicate opened with a tax ID one digit off."
Rachel said, "Identity fraud at corporate scale."
Nolan replied, "And Marcus, the duplicate account authorized a payment three days ago."
"To whom?"
"A private investigations firm in Peoria."
June grabbed the table.
"The men at my mother's house?"
"Maybe."
Then Nolan named the firm.
June's face emptied.
"I know that name," she whispered.
May you like
"From where?"
"It was printed on the accident investigator's card the day Caleb died."
