Chapter 4: The Call Victoria Made
My phone rang at six forty-five the next morning.
The name on the screen was one I hadn't saved, but I recognized the number.
I had seen it on Julian's phone bill often enough.
I answered.
"Elena." Victoria Vance's voice was lower than I expected.
Careful.
"I think we should talk."
I sat up in the guest room — the one Julian had assigned me before last night changed the geometry of this house entirely.
The morning light came through the curtain in a thin line.
"All right," I said.
"Not on the phone.
Can you meet me?"
We met at a coffee shop in Back Bay, a neutral place with small round tables and enough ambient noise that no one would listen.
Victoria was already seated when I arrived.
She wore no red dress today.
A grey coat, no jewelry, her dark hair pulled back simply.
She looked younger without the Sterling House polish.
She also looked like she hadn't slept.
She waited until I sat down.
"He told me the company was restructuring," she said.
"He told me Marcus was being let go because of performance issues.
He told me the transfers were moving money between subsidiaries."
"And you believed him."
She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
"I wanted to believe him.
That's not the same thing." She looked at the table.
"I'm not stupid, Elena.
I knew something was wrong with the Marcus situation.
I asked Julian twice.
He told me to focus on procurement and let him handle operations."
"So you let him."
"Yes." She looked up.
"And I'm telling you that now because I think you already know most of it, and I think what you don't know yet could make this worse for both of us."
I studied her face.
"What don't I know?"
Victoria reached into her bag and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
She didn't push it toward me.
She just left it there.
"Julian has a second set of books," she said.
"Not just the transfers you found.
A separate ledger.
He's been running a parallel account structure for at least three years.
I found it by accident four months ago when a supplier invoice didn't match our system records.
I confronted him.
He told me it was a tax strategy.
He told me it was legal."
"Is it?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"No," she said.
"I don't think it is."
I looked at the folded paper.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because he called me last night after he left your house," she said.
"He told me to delete certain files from the procurement server before end of business today.
He said it was routine cleanup." Her jaw tightened.
"He's done that before.
I've always done it.
This time I didn't."
I reached across and picked up the folded paper.
It was a list of file names.
Dates.
Server locations.
And at the bottom, in Victoria's handwriting: *I made copies.
All of it.*
"You could have gone to him," I said.
"You could have deleted the files and said nothing."
"I could have," she said.
"I spent most of last night thinking about that."
"Why didn't you?"
Victoria looked out the window at the street.
A woman walked past pushing a stroller.
A man in a suit checked his watch.
"Because Marcus Hale has a wife," she said.
"And two daughters.
And Julian destroyed his career to cover this up.
And Marcus never said a word because Julian told him that if he did, the liability would fall on him." She turned back to me.
"I'm not going to be the next Marcus."
I set the paper down between us.
"I need to make a call," I said.
"I know," Victoria said.
"I'll wait."
I stepped outside and called Sarah.
The morning air was cold and sharp.
"She has a second ledger," I said when Sarah picked up.
"And copies of everything Julian asked her to delete."
A pause.
"How solid?" Sarah said.
I looked through the coffee shop window at Victoria, still seated, both hands around her cup, watching the door.
"Solid enough," I said.
"And she's willing to cooperate."
May you like
Sarah was quiet for three seconds.
"Elena," she said, "this just became a different case."
