Chapter 5: Calloway & Sons
Jett's contact was named Paul.
He arrived at the restaurant at six, ordered coffee he didn't drink, and listened to everything I said without interrupting once.
When I finished, he asked three questions: what I was driving, whether I had any medical conditions he should know about, and whether I trusted Jett.
I said yes to the last one before I'd fully decided if it was true.
Paul told me to park on the street, not in the lot.
To keep my phone in my jacket pocket with the call to his number already open.
To walk in, listen, and not agree to anything on the spot.
"If you need to leave," he said, "say you need to use the restroom.
Walk toward the back.
I'll be at the rear exit."
"How will you get in?"
He looked at me like that was the least interesting part of the problem.
I drove to Calloway & Sons alone.
The building was low and gray, set back from the road behind a chain-link fence that had been propped open.
Two cars in the lot.
Lights on inside.
The woman with the silver ring opened the door before I knocked.
Up close she was younger than I'd expected.
Sharp eyes, careful posture.
She stepped aside without speaking and let me into a room that had been set up like a meeting — a folding table, four chairs, a single overhead light.
Marcus was in one of the chairs.
He stood up when he saw me.
I crossed the room and grabbed his arm.
"Are you hurt?"
"No.
I'm fine.
I'm sorry, I — "
"We'll get to that." I turned around.
The man from the phone was already seated.
He was in his fifties, well-dressed in the way that suggested he wanted you to notice, with a stillness about him that felt practiced.
He gestured to the chair across from him.
"Sit down, please.
This won't take long."
"I'll stand."
A small smile.
"Suit yourself." He folded his hands on the table.
"My name is Derrick Voss.
I think you already know that."
"I know your name.
I don't know what you want."
"I want what Marcus took from me."
I looked at Marcus.
His jaw tightened.
He didn't look at Voss.
"Marcus," I said quietly.
"What did you take?"
"It wasn't — it's not what he's making it sound like."
"Then tell me what it actually is."
Voss leaned back.
"Your brother was employed by one of my businesses for about six weeks earlier this year.
During that time, he accessed a set of files he had no authorization to view.
He copied them.
And then he disappeared." The smile again, patient and cold.
"I'd like those files returned."
"What kind of files?"
"The kind that belong to me."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Voss said.
"It isn't." He unfolded his hands and placed them flat on the table.
"But here's what is an answer.
Your brother is nineteen years old.
He made a mistake.
I'm not interested in involving the police — that would be messy for everyone, including me.
I simply want the files deleted and my property returned.
Marcus does that, and we all go home."
It sounded reasonable.
It was designed to sound reasonable.
"And if we walk out right now and he keeps them?" I asked.
Voss looked at me for a moment.
"Then things become more complicated for your family.
And I don't think you want that.
You're already stretched thin."
There it was.
The real message under the polite one.
"Give us a minute," I said.
Voss nodded toward a door at the back.
The woman with the silver ring stayed in the room.
Marcus followed me through the door into a narrow hallway.
I turned on him immediately.
"What are in those files?"
He pressed his back against the wall.
"Financial records.
Transfers.
Names of shell companies." He looked at the floor.
"He's been laundering money through the business I worked for.
I didn't know that when I took the job.
But once I figured it out, I — I copied everything.
Because I thought maybe someday it could protect me if he turned on me."
"Marcus."
"I know."
"Do you still have the files?"
"Yes.
On an encrypted drive.
Hidden."
I looked at him.
Nineteen years old and standing in a hallway in an abandoned warehouse because he'd been smart enough to see something he shouldn't have and not smart enough to know what to do with it.
"Okay," I said.
"Here's what we're not going to do.
We're not going to hand those files back to him."
Marcus's eyes went wide.
"Are you serious?
He'll — "
"He won't do anything tonight.
He wants those files too badly." I kept my voice low and steady.
"Do you trust me?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"Yeah," he said.
"I do."
"Then follow my lead."
We walked back into the room.
Voss looked up.
"He'll return the files," I said.
"But not tonight.
He needs to retrieve the drive.
Give us forty-eight hours."
Voss studied me.
"Twenty-four."
"Forty-eight.
Or we walk, and you get nothing."
Another pause.
Then he nodded once.
"Forty-eight hours.
Don't make me come looking."
We left.
Paul was parked half a block away.
I got Marcus into the back seat and got in beside him and sat there for a moment without speaking.
"You're not actually giving him the files," Paul said from the front.
It wasn't a question.
May you like
"No," I said.
"We're going to find out who needs them more than he does."
