Chapter 5: What Was Taken While He Was Looking Away
The Meridian warehouse on the south side had been part of Roman's legitimate construction supply operation for nine years.
It was clean, documented, audited annually, and entirely unremarkable to anyone who didn't know that a secondary floor beneath the loading dock held the financial records of every arrangement Roman had made in the past decade.
Not digital records.
Paper.
Ledgers, contracts, signed agreements, and photographs that existed in no cloud server and on no hard drive.
Celeste had once asked him why he kept paper records in an age when everything could be encrypted and stored remotely.
"Because paper can be held," he had told her.
"And what can be held can be controlled."
He understood the irony of that answer now as he stood in the secondary floor at 9:40 in the morning and looked at the open shelving unit where six of those ledgers should have been.
Three remained.
Three were gone.
His operations manager, a compact, precise man named Sal Ferretti, stood beside him.
"When?" Roman said.
"Sometime in the last forty-eight hours.
The exterior lock wasn't forced.
Someone had a key or a copy."
"Who has keys to this level?"
"You.
Me.
Marco." Sal paused.
"And until eight months ago, your previous logistics coordinator.
Dmitri Hale."
Roman turned.
"Hale was terminated," he said.
"Yes.
His key was supposed to be returned and destroyed.
I processed the paperwork myself." Sal's jaw was tight.
"The key in our log is recorded as destroyed.
But someone opened that lock."
"Which ledgers?"
Sal handed him a list.
Roman read it.
His hands did not move.
His face did not change.
But something behind his eyes did.
The three missing ledgers covered a specific window of time — four years ago through two years ago.
A period that included three particular transactions involving a city infrastructure contract, a zoning arrangement in the South Loop, and a payment made to a man who was now a sitting federal judge.
"Someone isn't trying to rob me," Roman said.
"No," Sal agreed quietly.
"They're building a case."
He folded the list and put it in his jacket pocket.
"Find Dmitri Hale," he said.
"Quietly.
Don't bring him in.
Just find him and watch him."
"And if he's already passed the ledgers on?"
Roman looked at the empty shelf.
"Then we find out who he passed them to before they find out we're looking."
He walked back through the loading dock and out into the grey morning.
Marco was waiting by the car.
"Vincent was right," Roman said as he got in.
"Someone has been running a play against me.
The photograph, the nursery, the custody filing — they wanted me focused on Celeste.
Emotional.
Distracted." He looked out the window.
"While someone walked into my warehouse and took three ledgers that could put me in front of a federal grand jury."
Marco started the car.
"Hale."
"Hale is the hand.
I want to know whose voice he's been listening to."
They drove in silence for two blocks.
"Roman," Marco said.
"What."
"The handwriting on the photograph.
The six words on the back." Marco kept his eyes on the road.
"I ran it this morning.
Had a contact do a comparison against documents in our files."
Roman looked at him.
"It matched someone," Marco said.
"Someone who's been in your penthouse.
Someone who's attended dinners there, meetings there, who Celeste trusted enough to let into that room."
Roman waited.
"It matched Lena Vasquez," Marco said.
Roman said nothing for a long time.
Lena Vasquez had been Celeste's closest friend for four years.
She had been at their wedding.
She had sat at their table at Christmas.
She had been, as far as Roman had ever observed, the one person in Celeste's life who existed entirely outside Roman's world.
"Lena," he said.
"Yes."
"Why would Lena leave that photograph on my desk?"
Marco was quiet for a moment.
"That's the question, isn't it.
Was she warning you?
Or pointing you somewhere she wanted you to look?"
Roman stared at the street ahead.
"Where is she now?"
"That's the other thing," Marco said.
"She left Chicago three days ago.
May you like
No forwarding address.
Her apartment is empty."
