Chapter 3: What the Signature Cost
I folded the note and put it in my jacket pocket.
"Maya." I kept my voice even.
"Does anyone know where Lily is being treated?
Which hospital, which floor?"
She blinked.
"Mount Sinai.
Pediatric pulmonology.
Why?"
"Does anyone outside your family know that?"
"I — I don't think so." Her hands tightened at her sides.
"Mr.
Foster, what's happening?"
"Nothing that's going to touch Lily." I said it like a fact.
I needed it to be one.
"Go home tonight.
Don't take the usual route.
Call me when you're inside."
She stared at me for a long moment, then nodded and reached for her coat.
I waited until I heard the elevator close before I called Frank back.
"Tell me everything about the cold-storage unit.
Who signed the lease.
When it was opened.
Who has access."
"Lease was opened six weeks ago," Frank said.
"Single-key access.
The name on the lease is a shell — Meridian Cold Solutions.
But the contact number traces back to a cell registered to a Victor Hale."
I sat down slowly.
Victor Hale had been Sam Miller's logistics director for eleven years before I'd acquired Miller's company eight months ago.
I'd kept the acquisition quiet.
I'd kept most of Miller's people on.
I'd thought that was the generous move.
"Frank.
Pull every access log for my executive credentials going back ninety days."
"Already did." A pause.
"Daniel, your login was used from an IP address in Midtown on a Tuesday afternoon.
You were in London that week.
I checked your travel records."
"So someone accessed my account from inside the building."
"From inside your office."
I looked at the door to my study.
"Who has the key code to this floor?"
"Building security, your PA, and—" Frank stopped.
"Say it."
"Ryan Callaway."
I didn't move for several seconds.
Ryan had been with me for nine years.
He'd been in the room for every deal, every acquisition, every restructure.
He knew my credentials.
He knew my schedule.
He'd known I was in London that Tuesday because he'd booked the flight himself.
I picked up my phone and called him.
It rang four times.
Then voicemail.
"Ryan.
Call me back tonight."
I set the phone down and opened my laptop.
I pulled up the pharmacy records again — the specialty distributor connected to the rerouted shipment.
Meridian Pediatric Supply.
I cross-referenced the registered directors.
One name appeared twice.
Victor Hale.
And below it, listed as a silent financial partner: S.
Miller.
Sam Miller hadn't walked away from his company when I'd bought it.
He'd gone underground inside it.
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
*You're looking in the right place.
But you're running out of time.
The next transfer is scheduled for 6 a.m.*
I read it twice.
Someone else was watching this.
Someone who wanted me to move faster — or wanted me to think I needed to.
I typed back: *Who are you?*
Three dots appeared.
Then stopped.
Then the number went dark.
I stood at the window and looked out at the city.
Forty floors below, the lights moved in slow rivers.
Somewhere in one of those rivers, a six-year-old girl was breathing through a machine because the medication she needed had been pulled off a manifest and locked in a warehouse in Queens.
And the man who'd done it had used my name to do it.
My phone rang.
Frank again.
"Daniel.
The storage unit in Queens — someone just triggered the access alarm.
The unit's been opened."
"How long ago?"
"Four minutes."
"Get someone there now."
"Already called it in.
But Daniel—" His voice dropped.
"If they're clearing it out tonight, whatever evidence was in there is gone by morning."
May you like
I grabbed my coat.
"Then we don't wait for morning."
