Chapter 6: Elena
I didn't open the envelope at my parents' house.
I drove back to my apartment, sat down at my kitchen table, and held it for a long moment before I finally broke the seal.
Inside was a single folded page, handwritten, dated three years earlier.
*Ms.
Arriaga,*
*You don't know me.
My name is Elena Voss.
I work for Julian Sterling's firm.
I am writing to you because I have reason to believe you are being considered as a future partner for Mateo Vance, and because what I have found in the course of my work concerns your family directly.*
*I cannot send documentation through any channel I trust to be secure.
What I can tell you is this: the Vance Group has been systematically falsifying infrastructure bid records across six Midwestern states for at least four years.
Your father's company was used as a legitimate front — I believe without his knowledge — to validate two of those contracts.
The paper trail, as constructed, implicates Arriaga Construction as a knowing participant.*
*This is not true.
But it has been made to look true.
And someone is holding it.*
*If you receive this letter, it means I was not able to reach you in time through safer means.
Please find Julian Sterling.
He knows the rest.*
*I hope you are well.
I hope this reaches you before anything worse does.*
*— E.V.*
I read it twice.
Then I set it on the table and called Julian.
He answered on the first ring.
"She wrote to me," I said.
"Three years ago.
My father kept the letter."
A pause.
"What did it say?"
I read it to him.
When I finished, the line was quiet for a moment.
"She never told me she had written to you," he said.
"She must have done it the same week Richard moved against her.
She was trying to reach you before everything collapsed."
"Can I meet her?" I asked.
"Tomorrow."
"Yes," he said.
"I'll arrange it."
Elena Voss was not what I had constructed in my mind.
I had imagined someone brittle, still carrying the damage of what had been done to her.
The woman who stood up when I entered Julian's conference room the following morning was composed, precise, and looked at me with the kind of steadiness that comes from having already survived the worst of something.
"Ms.
Arriaga," she said, and extended her hand.
"Daniela," I said.
"Please."
We sat across from each other.
Julian sat at the end of the table and said nothing.
"I owe you an apology," Elena said.
"The letter I sent your father — I addressed it to you, but I had no way of knowing if it would reach you.
I should have found a better way."
"You were out of time," I said.
"I understand that now."
She nodded once.
"What do you need from me?"
"Everything you found," I said.
"Whatever survived."
"Most of it survived," she said.
"The case collapsed because of how I obtained two pieces of evidence — I accessed a server I wasn't authorized to access.
That made those specific files inadmissible." She paused.
"But the rest of what I had was gathered cleanly.
Forty-seven documents.
Eleven recorded conversations — all legally obtained in states with single-party consent.
Financial transfer records subpoenaed through a separate civil matter that was later dropped." She folded her hands on the table.
"None of that was ever presented.
The case ended before we got there."
"Because Richard moved against you first," I said.
"Yes."
"And Commissioner Whitfield?"
Elena's expression didn't change, but something behind her eyes sharpened.
"You have that name."
"My father gave it to me last night."
She looked at Julian.
He gave a small nod.
"Whitfield has been on Richard Vance's payroll for six years," Elena said.
"Not directly.
Through a consulting firm that exists on paper only.
I have the transfer records." She reached into the folder in front of her and slid three pages across the table.
"These were subpoenaed as part of the civil matter.
They are entirely clean."
I looked at the pages.
Dates, amounts, account numbers.
A consulting firm called Meridian Advisory Group, registered in Delaware, with a single named director.
Dale Whitfield.
"This is enough," I said.
"For Whitfield, yes," Elena said.
"For the Vances, we need one more thing." She paused.
"We need someone inside the Vance Group to confirm the bid manipulation on record.
Someone who was present.
Someone whose testimony can't be dismissed."
The room went quiet.
May you like
I already knew, before she said the next sentence, what was coming.
"We think that person," Elena said carefully, "may be Selina Reed."
