Chapter 2 - The Man Who Knew Too Much
For three seconds, the Sterling Grand became a place of screams and breaking glass.
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
Adrian Blackwood was on the floor behind the table, one arm wrapped around Evelyn's shoulders. A bullet had shattered the window behind them, scattering glass across the carpet.
"Don't move," he ordered.
Evelyn could barely hear him over the ringing in her ears.
"Was that meant for you?"
"Probably."
"Probably?"
He looked at her. "If it were meant for you, I would have failed you already."
It was the strangest reassurance she had ever received.
Across the room, security guards rushed toward the broken window. Someone shouted that the shooter had escaped through the hotel garden.
Adrian helped Evelyn stand.
"Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Good. We're leaving."
"I have questions."
"So do I. But I would prefer to answer them somewhere without an open window and a potential sniper."
He guided her through a service corridor while two guards followed. Evelyn's mind raced through the pieces of information she had received.
Her father had been murdered.
Adrian knew why.
And someone had just tried to kill them both.
She should have run.
Instead, she followed him into a private elevator that required a security code to operate.
The doors closed.
Adrian immediately turned to his head of security, a stern woman named Rachel Hayes.
"Lock down the building. Preserve the security footage. Nobody deletes anything, and nobody accesses the server without your authorization."
"Understood."
"Find the shooter."
Rachel nodded and stepped out at the next floor.
Evelyn folded her arms across her chest.
"Now tell me what happened to my father."
Adrian pressed a hand against his forehead.
"His name was Thomas Carter. He was a forensic accountant hired to investigate irregular transfers within Blackwood Industries."
"I know what he did."
"Then you know he discovered that millions of dollars were being moved through shell companies."
"My father told the police."
"He tried."
Adrian's voice grew quieter.
"Someone inside the company intercepted his report. Before he could submit a copy to federal investigators, his office was searched and his computer disappeared."
Evelyn felt sick.
"The police said he lost control of his car."
"The brakes were tampered with."
She grabbed the elevator railing.
"How do you know that?"
"Because my father paid someone to make certain the investigation ended."
The doors opened onto the top floor.
Adrian led her into a private suite decorated with dark wood, leather furniture, and enormous windows overlooking Manhattan.
He poured water into two glasses but didn't offer champagne.
"My father, Richard Blackwood, was a ruthless man," he continued. "He built his empire by believing that every problem had a price. When your father discovered the fraud, Richard decided the easiest solution was to make him disappear."
Evelyn stared at him.
"And you did nothing?"
The question landed harder than she intended.
Adrian looked away.
"I was twenty-nine. I had just returned from London. I knew money was disappearing, but I believed the people around my father were responsible. I didn't know he had ordered a murder."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No."
His honesty unsettled her more than an excuse would have.
Adrian opened the black envelope from the restaurant.
Inside lay a photograph, several pages of handwritten notes, and a folded document bearing the seal of a private security company.
"My father died six weeks ago," he said. "Before his death, he left instructions for his attorney to deliver this envelope to me if certain accounts were ever investigated."
"What's in it?"
"Evidence connecting Richard to the financial scheme. And a list of people who helped him."
Evelyn reached for the document.
Her father's name appeared on the first page.
Beneath it was another name.
Victoria Langley.
"Who is she?"
"My father's former executive assistant. She managed several of the shell companies and helped conceal the transfers. She also became his mistress."
Evelyn sank into a chair.
"And you invited her to dinner?"
"I didn't invite her. She insisted on meeting me after threatening to release documents that could destroy my company."
"Why didn't you call the police?"
"I did. I was waiting for the investigators to arrive when you warned me about the drink."
He looked at her steadily.
"Victoria knew I had discovered the envelope. She intended to make my death look like a medical emergency. Then she would have inherited control of the foundation my father established and gained access to the remaining accounts."
"Why would killing you help her?"
"Because the accounts contain enough evidence to send her to prison."
Evelyn looked at the photograph of her father.
A sudden, painful thought occurred to her.
"If you had this evidence, why didn't you find me sooner?"
Adrian's expression changed.
"Because the evidence was incomplete. And because I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"That the people who killed your father would come after you next."
She stood.
"You don't get to decide whether I deserve the truth."
"No," he admitted. "I don't."
"Then stop treating me like a person you need to protect by keeping me ignorant."
For a moment, neither spoke.
Then Adrian nodded.
"You're right."
He opened a drawer and removed a second folder.
"This contains the financial records your father was working on. I found them hidden inside a safe at my father's country estate."
Evelyn took the folder.
On the final page was a handwritten note.
If anything happens to me, find the original ledger. The copy isn't enough. The person who holds the original controls the truth.
Below the sentence was an address.
A warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront.
Evelyn recognized it immediately.
Her father had taken her there once when she was a teenager. He had told her it belonged to a friend.
"What is this place?" she asked.
Adrian studied the address.
"It's one of the properties connected to the shell companies."
Before Evelyn could respond, Rachel entered the suite.
"We found something."
She placed a tablet on the table.
The security footage showed Victoria leaving the restaurant through a service entrance moments before the shooting.
But that wasn't the disturbing part.
A second clip showed a man entering the hotel garage ten minutes before Adrian arrived.
He wore a gray coat and carried a small black case.
Rachel enlarged his face.
Adrian went rigid.
"That's impossible."
"Who is he?" Evelyn asked.
Adrian didn't answer immediately.
Then he whispered a name.
"Daniel Cross."
Evelyn recognized it from the documents.
Daniel Cross had been the investigator assigned to her father's death.
The man who had signed the final report declaring the crash accidental.
Rachel turned off the tablet.
"There's more. The man who fired the shot used a security badge registered to this hotel. Someone inside gave him access."
Adrian looked at Evelyn.
"The person who killed your father may still be working for the police."
Evelyn closed the folder.
For three years, she had believed the truth was buried with her father.
Now she understood something worse.
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The truth was alive.
And it knew exactly where she lived.
