Chapter 3 - THE CIPHER IN THE SKETCHBOOK
The cold wind coming off Lake Michigan carried the smell of burnt electrical wiring and wet timber. Vivian stood up so fast her heel caught on a charred piece of wood, sending her stumbling backward.
Roman caught her elbow before she could hit the soot-covered floor. His touch was firm, almost clinical, but the heat of his fingers burned through her sleeve.
“Don’t touch me,” Vivian snapped, pulling her arm away. “I don’t know that child, I’ve never seen that drawing, and I had nothing to do with this fire!”
“You organized the charity gala at the Continental,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that chilling, measured rhythm. “You approved the security floor plan. You had master keycard access to the service corridors, including the freight elevators that bypass the lobby.”
“Because it’s my job!” Vivian shot back, her heart hammering against her ribs. “The catering staff needs access to the service elevators so four hundred prime rib dinners don’t sit in a hallway getting cold! If somebody used my schedule to plan a raid, they stole it!”
“Uncle Roman,” Mia’s small voice cut through the rising tension. The little girl reached out from inside the massive firefighter coat, tugging on the hem of Roman’s dark trousers. “She smells like vanilla. The bad man smelled like sour cigars.”
Roman didn't take his eyes off Vivian, but his posture subtly relaxed by a fraction of an inch. “Go on, Mia.”
“The cigar man had yellow teeth,” Mia said, clutching the book against her chest. “He told Papa that if the lady in green smiled at the guard, the freight door would stay open for ten minutes. But she didn't smile at any guard, did she?”
Vivian stared at the little girl, pieces of the evening snapping together in a sickening rush. “The loading dock supervisor. Carl. He asked me to sign off on a late linen delivery at eight-fifteen. He told me the lock was sticking on the service door, and he propped it open with a doorstop while I checked the invoice.”
Marco stepped forward, holding a tablet. “Carl Evans. Hired six weeks ago through an outside staffing agency. He didn't report to work after nine tonight. His locker was cleared out.”
The accusation in Roman’s eyes didn’t disappear, but it evolved into something far more dangerous: calculating curiosity. He took the sketchbook gently from Mia’s hands and flipped past the drawing of Vivian. On the reverse side of the page was a grid of handwritten numbers and dates, scrawled in faded blue ink.
“This isn’t a child’s drawing,” Roman murmured, studying the numbers. “This is an inventory cipher. My brother’s cipher.”
Vivian frowned, catching the word. “Your brother? I thought you were an only child.”
“My older brother, Julian,” Roman said flatly. “He died three years ago in a car crash on the Skyway. At least, that was the official police report.”
“And unofficially?”
“Unofficially, the brake lines had been severed with industrial cutters, and forty million dollars in bearer bonds vanished from our family holding company the same night.” Roman closed the book with a snap. “Julian’s personal safe was in this office. Dominic Lucchesi didn’t burn the docks to kill a dockworker. He burned it to find what Julian left behind.”
“Then why involve me?” Vivian demanded, wrapping her arms around herself against the bitter damp chill. “Why use my event as a staging ground?”
“Because Julian’s estate didn’t just vanish into thin air,” Roman said, stepping closer until Vivian could smell the dark cedar and tobacco clinging to his coat. “Before Julian died, he transferred one third of his private holdings into a blind educational trust. The trustee isn't a bank. It’s an individual.”
Roman reached into his inner pocket, pulled out the gold event coordinator badge he had taken from her lapel earlier, and held it up between them.
“Julian’s trust was registered under the name of a young woman who received a full academic scholarship to Northwestern University ten years ago,” Roman said, his eyes drilling into hers. “Funded anonymously by the Valente Foundation.”
Vivian felt the ground tilt beneath her feet. The breath seized in her throat. “My mother died when I was nineteen. I had to drop out of state college. Then an anonymous envelope arrived offering to pay my entire tuition, room, and board at Northwestern. I thought… I thought it was a civic charity.”
“It was Julian,” Roman said. “And according to the legal papers Lucchesi was searching for tonight, you aren't just an innocent event planner who wandered into the wrong alcove, Vivian. You are the sole legal executor of my brother’s secret estate.”
Before Vivian could process the shock, Leo, the burly dockworker, cursed violently from the doorway.
“Boss! Black sedans just blew past the outer perimeter gate! No headlights!”
The roar of powerful engines echoed across the wet asphalt outside. Roman didn't hesitate. In one fluid motion, he scooped Mia up in his left arm, grabbed Vivian’s hand with his right, and shoved her toward a reinforced steel doorway at the rear of the charred office.
“Marco, lay suppression,” Roman commanded with lethal clarity. “Get the car to the north exit!”
Gunfire shattered the night. The sound was deafening, bouncing off the corrugated metal walls like thunderclaps. Glass rained down from the high clerestory windows. Vivian screamed, instinctively ducking, her hands over her ears.
Roman shoved her down behind a concrete retaining wall, shielding both her and Mia with his own body. He drew a sleek black semiautomatic from beneath his jacket, his breathing entirely steady, his face like carved stone.
“Keep your head down,” Roman ordered, his voice right against her ear.
Through the gaps in the rubble, Vivian saw three black town cars screeching to a halt. Men in tactical vests spilled out, carrying submachine guns. But it wasn’t Dominic Lucchesi leading them.
Stepping out from the passenger side of the lead car was an older woman with silver hair pulled into an elegant, severe chignon, wearing an immaculate beige trench coat and holding a silver-tipped walking cane.
Vivian gasped.
“You know her?” Roman whispered, noticing her reaction.
May you like
“That’s Evelyn Cross,” Vivian stammered, her voice shaking violently. “She’s the chairwoman of the Continental Charity Board. She hired me for tonight’s gala!”
Roman’s expression turned savagely grim. “Evelyn Cross isn’t just a socialite, Vivian. She was Julian’s mother-in-law. And the woman who tried to have me executed three days after he died.”
