Chapter 8 - The Secondary Ledger
The voice crackling through Detective Perez's radio belonged to Agent Cross, and he sounded breathless.
*"Perez, where is the girl?"*
Perez thumbed the talk button immediately. "She's with me in the second-floor lounge. What's wrong?"
*"Lock the room. Do not bring her down to the lobby. We just pulled the preliminary data off Ryan’s secondary drive at the scene. He wasn't laundering for himself."*
Perez’s eyes widened. She stood up instantly, walked to the heavy steel door of the lounge, pulled it shut, and turned the deadbolt with a sharp, heavy *clack*.
"Who was he laundering for, Cross?" she demanded into the radio.
*"The Morozov syndicate out of Cleveland,"* Cross replied, static chewing at the edges of his transmission. *"The money he routed wasn't corporate consulting funds. It was extortion and illicit gambling revenue washed through shell companies. The four million sitting in the escrow wasn't Ryan's retirement—it was their cut. And the scheduled transfer Emily was supposed to trigger wasn't an exit node. It was supposed to be the payout."*
My stomach dropped into a bottomless void.
"If the payout didn't go through..." I whispered, the words catching in my throat.
"If the payout didn't go through," Perez finished my thought, her face pale, "the people expecting that money are going to assume Ryan stole it."
"No," I corrected, a sudden, blinding terror seizing my lungs. "They won't assume Ryan stole it. Ryan told them the computer belonged to *me*. The accounts were opened in *my* name. If they track the failed transfer, who are they going to look for?"
Before Perez could answer, the fire alarm in the building began to scream.
A piercing, strobing siren ripped through the quiet halls of the police department. Red emergency lights bathed the room in bloody, rhythmic flashes. Over the building’s intercom, an automated voice blared:
*ATTENTION. CODE RED. WATER MAIN EVACUATION IN BASEMENT AND EVIDENCE REPOSITORY. ALL NON-ESSENTIAL PERSONNEL PROCEED TO PERIMETER EXITS.*
Perez drew her service weapon in a single, fluid motion. She stepped between me and the reinforced glass window overlooking the parking lot.
"Cross!" she yelled into the radio. "What is that alarm?"
Nothing came back through the speaker except harsh, rhythmic static.
*Krrrrr-chk. Krrrr-chk.*
Then, a voice that was definitely not Agent Cross spoke through the open channel. It was low, smooth, and heavily accented with an Eastern European cadence.
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*"Detective Perez. You have something in that room that belongs to our associates. Along with a very rude young lady who failed to complete our wire transfer at midnight."*
***
