“I think you approved payments.”
“I did.”
That surprised him.
Vincent continued.
“Because Isabella asked me to.”
Lorenzo stared.
“What?”
“She came to me six months ago. She believed someone was extracting money through legacy port vendors.”
“Her note names you.”
“Because she didn’t trust me completely either.”
Vincent smiled sadly.
“She was smart.”
“So you expect me to believe the payments were bait?”
“Yes.”
“For whom?”
“We never figured that out.”
“Convenient.”
“I created traceable vendor channels. Whoever was manipulating approvals would eventually touch one.”
“And?”
“They did.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“Three days before Isabella disappeared, she called me.”
Lorenzo’s heartbeat changed.
“She said she knew who it was.”
“Who?”
“She refused to say over the phone.”
Lorenzo stood.
“You’re lying.”
“Ask yourself one thing.”
“What?”
“If I wanted Isabella dead, why would I use my own executive credentials, my own vendors, my own vehicles and money traceable to companies connected to me?”
“Arrogance.”
“No.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Someone wanted you to find me.”
That night Lorenzo told Rachel.
She did not dismiss it.
That worried him more than if she had laughed.
She reopened the payment timeline.
Something strange emerged.
Several transactions supposedly authorized by Vincent occurred while he was physically outside the United States.
Credentials could be used remotely.
But two required biometric access from headquarters.
Security records showed Vincent entering the building.
Airport records showed him landing in Paris three hours earlier.
Someone had cloned the internal authentication process.
“Who could do that?” Lorenzo asked.
Rachel answered:
“Someone with administrative security privileges.”
There were four people.
Two had already been cleared through independent records.
One was dead.
The fourth was Mason Reed.
Lorenzo almost smiled.
Not because it was funny.
Because the alternative was unbearable.
“No.”
Rachel watched him.
“You said the same thing about Vincent.”
“Mason brought you into this.”
“Yes.”
“He insisted we preserve evidence.”
“Yes.”
“He stopped me from attacking Vincent.”
“Yes.”
“He helped find Isabella.”
Rachel said nothing.
Lorenzo’s certainty faltered.
Then he remembered Bruno.
Growling.
At Mason.
The next morning Emma entered the breakfast room carrying crayons.
She had been drawing at the kitchen table while Sophia packed.
Isabella knelt beside her.
“What did you make?”
“A train.”
There were tracks.
A fence.
A large black shape representing Bruno.
A woman with green circles for eyes.
And far away, beside a gray square, stood a tall stick figure.
Isabella stopped smiling.
“Who’s that?”
Emma shrugged.
“The man.”
Sophia turned.
“What man?”
“The man at the station.”
Every adult in the room froze.
Lorenzo crouched.
“Emma.”
“Yes?”
“You didn’t tell me about a man.”
“He was far away.”
“What did he look like?”
She shrugged again.
“Like a man.”
Of course.
Lorenzo pointed toward the gray square.
“What is this?”
“The car.”
Sophia sat down.
“The SUV?”
Emma nodded.
Isabella’s breathing became shallow.
“What do you remember about the man?”
Emma thought.
“He had shiny fingers.”
“A ring?”
“No.”
She struggled for the word.
“A watch?”
Emma brightened.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
She picked up a silver crayon.
Then drew a circle.
