Chapter Six - The Unanswered Question
1402 Words
Damian had spent five years believing the worst night of his life was behind him.
He was beginning to understand that perhaps it had never ended.
The file lay open on his desk.
He had read the same transaction twelve times.
The dates were wrong.
Not obviously wrong. Not enough for an inexperienced eye to notice.
But Damian knew the Voss records.
He knew how authorization codes were generated, who had access to them, and how confirmations were logged.
Someone had changed the record.
The question was why.
His thumb moved over the signet ring.
He stopped himself.
Elena had always noticed when he did that.
The thought came uninvited.
He pushed it away.
Vera Kane was not Elena.
She could not be.
He had buried his wife five years ago.
Or rather, he had buried what remained of the certainty that she would ever come home.
There had never been a body.
That fact had haunted him.
The official explanation had been enough for everyone else. The car crash had left little room for hope. The evidence had been conclusive.
Damian had accepted it because he had been forced to.
But he had never accepted the rest.
He had never understood why certain records surrounding that night had disappeared.
Why his own recollection contained gaps.
Why Elena's father had been killed shortly before her supposed death.
And why, after all these years, Vera Kane had walked into his life carrying pieces of a woman he had never stopped mourning.
He reached for the phone.
"Pull everything connected to the Rossi-Voss transfers from five years ago."
A pause.
"Everything," Damian repeated. "Original records. Corrections. Access logs."
He ended the call.
He did not tell them why.
He did not tell anyone.
Especially not Marcus.
The younger Voss had already taken too much interest in Vera.
Damian did not need him digging in the same direction.
A knock came at the door.
Vera entered.
She held another folder.
"Your financial problem has become three problems."
Damian looked up.
"Explain."
"The original discrepancy was only the first layer. Whoever moved the money used two accounts to make the transfer appear legitimate."
She placed the folder on his desk.
"I found the second account."
Damian opened it.
"And the third?"
"Does not exist anymore."
His gaze sharpened.
"Convenient."
"Very."
She remained standing.
Damian looked at the documents.
"You found all this in one afternoon."
"I had help."
"Who?"
"The records."
His eyes lifted.
She gave him the faintest smile.
It reminded him of Elena.
Again.
He hated it.
"Sit."
Vera did.
Damian studied her for a moment.
"You have worked with financial systems before."
"Yes."
"Where?"
She paused.
"Various places."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the answer you are getting."
Something about the way she said it made him want to smile.
He did not.
"You do not trust me."
Vera's expression changed.
"Should I?"
The question caught him off guard.
He leaned back.
"I have not given you a reason not to."
"Neither have I."
Silence.
Damian looked away.
He turned the ring.
Vera's eyes dropped to his hand.
"You do that when you are thinking."
His fingers stopped.
The words hit him harder than they should have.
Elena had said the same thing.
Not once.
Hundreds of times.
Damian stared at Vera.
She seemed to realize what she had said.
"What?"
"Nothing."
He forced his attention back to the papers.
But his concentration was gone.
The phrase had been ordinary.
The observation had been ordinary.
Anyone could have noticed.
Anyone.
He repeated that to himself until it sounded like an excuse.
Vera stood.
"I will trace the missing account."
"Do not."
She stopped.
"Why?"
"Because I want to know where it leads before anyone touches it."
Her expression sharpened.
"You think someone inside the organization is involved."
"I think someone knew enough to hide it."
"That is different."
"Not by much."
She watched him.
Then nodded.
"I will leave it alone."
She turned toward the door.
"Vera."
She looked back.
"Good work."
A flicker of surprise crossed her face.
"Thank you."
She left.
Damian waited until the door closed.
Then he opened another file.
Elena.
He had not looked at it in months.
He pulled out the photograph he kept hidden beneath older documents.
His wife smiled from the image.
Long auburn hair.
Pale green eyes.
A softness in her expression that photographs rarely captured.
She had hated that picture.
She had claimed she looked too serious.
Damian had kept it anyway.
He remembered the last morning he had seen her.
She had stood in their bedroom doorway, arguing with him about something he could no longer remember.
He remembered her voice.
Her eyes.
The way she had touched his shoulder before walking away.
He remembered thinking there would be another morning.
There had not been.
His jaw tightened.
The scar near his right temple pulled with the movement.
He touched it absently.
Then closed his eyes.
Five years.
He had spent five years asking the same question.
What had he missed?
The answer had always seemed simple.
Nothing.
He had trusted the information placed in front of him.
He had made his decisions.
He had lived with the consequences.
But the new records changed something.
Not everything.
Just enough.
He opened the access logs.
There.
A name.
The record had been accessed two days after the original transaction.
Then altered.
Damian read the entry again.
The person had had authorization.
More importantly, they had been close enough to the family to know what the information meant.
His stomach tightened.
Someone had not merely changed a number.
Someone had known exactly what they were hiding.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
There had been other things.
Small things he had dismissed because grief made patterns out of shadows.
The way Vera tilted her head when she disagreed.
The slight pause before she answered a question she considered intrusive.
The way she looked at a room before choosing where to stand.
Elena had done all of it.
But thousands of people did similar things.
Damian had spent five years surrounded by memories.
He could not turn every resemblance into evidence.
Still, the thought stayed.
What if his mind was not inventing the connection?
He immediately rejected it.
No.
He had watched the crash reports.
He had read the official findings until the words blurred.
There had been no body to bury, but there had been enough evidence for everyone to accept that Elena was gone.
He had accepted it.
He had built his life around it.
Vera Kane could not undo five years with a familiar look.
Another knock sounded.
This time Marcus entered without waiting.
Damian closed the file.
Marcus noticed.
Of course he did.
"Busy?"
"Always."
Marcus walked toward the desk.
"I heard Vera solved the transfer problem."
"She did."
"She is impressive."
Damian said nothing.
Marcus leaned against the edge of the desk.
"Where did you find her?"
"You have already seen her records."
"I have seen them."
"Then you have your answer."
Marcus smiled.
"You do not usually bring strangers this close."
"She is not a stranger anymore."
That answer made Marcus's smile fade for half a second.
Damian noticed.
"Anything else?"
Marcus straightened.
"No."
He started toward the door.
Then stopped.
"You are being careful with her."
Damian's eyes hardened.
"Should I not be?"
"That is not what I meant."
"I know."
Marcus left.
Damian waited.
Then he reopened the file.
The access log was still there.
One name.
One authorization.
One alteration.
He stared at it.
The name belonged to someone who had been trusted by his family for years.
Someone who would have had access to the information Damian received before Elena's death.
Someone who could have changed the records afterward.
His hand closed around the signet ring.
For the first time, Damian allowed himself to consider a possibility he had avoided for five years.
Maybe the lie had not come from outside.
Maybe it had come from inside his own house.
He looked toward the closed door.
Vera's face flashed through his mind.
Those eyes.
That voice.
That impossible familiarity.
His grief wanted to give him an answer.
Damian refused to let it.
Vera Kane was not Elena.
He knew that.
He had to know that.
But someone had lied to him five years ago.
And now he needed to know who.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD