Chapter 2 - THE ACCOUNT WITH MY MOTHER’S NAME
Russell took me to the Hartwell Hotel on Wacker Drive.
The presidential suite had been prepared, but I asked for the smallest room available.
I did not want marble floors or a skyline.
I wanted a locked door and ten minutes without anyone needing something from me.
My father arrived before I finished washing the rain from my face.
Arthur Hartwell filled the doorway in a dark overcoat.
At sixty-eight, he still moved like the man who had once unloaded lumber beside his workers because the forklift broke.
He saw the bruise.
His jaw tightened.
“Where is he?”
“At the penthouse.”
“Not for long.”
“Dad.”
He stopped.
“I need facts before revenge.”
A faint, humorless smile touched his mouth.
“You sound like your mother.”
That was how he led me to the dining table, where Russell had spread out bank records, vendor contracts, emails, and photographs.
Victor had diverted nearly eight million dollars through shell consulting firms.
Kendra received jewelry, a condo deposit, travel expenses, and a salary from a company with no employees.
Eleanor received monthly transfers disguised as community outreach fees.
I already knew most of it.
Then Russell showed me a wire sent to Lane Memorial Foundation.
Lane was my mother’s family name.
The foundation had been closed for eighteen years, after her car went off a bridge in Wisconsin.
“Why is Victor sending money there?” I asked.
“He is not,” Russell said.
“He is receiving money from an account that uses the foundation’s tax identity.”
My father placed a photograph beside the statement.
It showed Victor meeting a retired Hartwell accountant named Simon Voss in a parking garage.
Voss had disappeared after my mother died.
Police believed he stole from the company and fled.
My father never believed it.
“Victor told me he met Voss through Kendra,” Russell said.
“How do you know?”
“We recovered a deleted voice note from his Meridian phone.”
Russell played it.
Victor’s voice filled the room.
Kendra says Voss can prove Hartwell buried a murder.
If I get the files, Arthur will have to give me the company.
My stomach turned.
Victor had not only stolen from my father.
He had been building leverage against him.
“Did he know who I was?” I asked.
“Not at first,” my father said.
“But he began suspecting six months ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You asked me not to interfere.”
“And you agreed?”
“I promised not to rescue you from disappointment.”
His eyes moved to the bruise.
“I never promised to tolerate violence.”
Russell’s phone rang.
He listened, then looked at us.
“Victor has called an emergency press conference for nine in the morning.”
“What is he going to say?”
“He claims Olivia is a Hartwell spy who manipulated his career and framed him for fraud.”
My father stood.
“He wants war.”
“No,” I said.
“He wants sympathy.”
I opened Victor’s personnel file.
One page was missing.
The original background investigation.
Russell checked the electronic archive.
The document had been removed by someone using my credentials.
I had not entered the Meridian system in seven years.
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Then a security alert appeared.
Someone had just used my hidden Hartwell identity to transfer fifty million dollars.
