Chapter 3 - The Blue Notebook
The blue notebook had cost three dollars at a pharmacy.
June had bought it after an invoice crossed her desk with the wrong date.
Nothing dramatic.
A refrigeration repair listed for a terminal that had closed six months earlier.
She had called accounting.
Someone told her it was a coding error.
Then another invoice arrived.
And another.
By the time she began feeling sick, she had filled forty pages.
“Why write it by hand?” Ruiz asked.
“Because files kept changing.”
June shifted against her pillow.
“I’d flag something in the system. The next morning, it would be corrected. Sometimes the original attachment disappeared.”
Dante remembered approving summary reports.
Always summaries.
Always prepared by people he trusted to spare him details.
“What kind of amounts?” he asked.
June looked at him.
He stopped.
Ruiz waited until June continued.
“Small at first. Then hundreds of thousands. Spread across contractors, consulting firms, maintenance companies.”
“Connected to Roland?”
“Some. Others connected to the Kane organization.”
Dante’s expression changed.
Celeste Kane’s father controlled the freight network Roland had been pushing him to join through marriage.
Ruiz noticed.
“We’ll need those names.”
“I have copies.”
“Where?”
June looked toward the window.
“My sister.”
Dante stared at her.
In three years, he had never known June had a sister.
Not because she had hidden it.
Because he had never asked.
“Her name is Wren. She’s twenty-two. She studies nursing in Worcester.”
“Does she know what you found?”
“She knows I was frightened. I mailed her photographs of the notebook and a flash drive. I told her not to open anything unless I called.”
Ruiz stood.
“We’ll contact her now.”
June reached for the bed rail.
“Please don’t frighten her.”
The detective’s voice softened.
“We’ll explain carefully.”
After Ruiz left, Dante remained silent.
June looked exhausted.
“You have a sister,” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“I should have known.”
“She has opinions. You’ve been spared several.”
A startled laugh escaped him.
It vanished when June winced.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize for laughing. It’s the first normal sound I’ve heard all night.”
He leaned forward.
“Tell me about her.”
June studied him, as though deciding whether the question was real.
Then she did.
Wren had terrible taste in boyfriends and perfect grades. She put hot sauce on everything. Their mother had died when June was nineteen, and June had become the person signing permission slips, arguing with landlords, and pretending there was enough money.
Dante listened.
No phone.
No interruption.
By the time Wren arrived that afternoon, escorted by a plainclothes officer, he knew enough to recognize her before she spoke.
Same eyes.
Same stubborn chin.
Far less patience.
She crossed the room and hugged June carefully.
Then she turned on Dante.
“You’re the reason she kept saying work was complicated.”
“Wren,” June murmured.
“No. I’ve been polite about this man for three years.”
Dante stood.
“You don’t owe me politeness.”
“Good.”
She handed the evidence package to Ruiz, who had returned with another investigator.
“My sister mailed this six weeks ago. I kept it sealed.”
Ruiz thanked her.
Wren looked back at Dante.
“You can buy a hospital wing if you want. You still don’t get to decide what happens to her.”
“I know.”
“We’ll see.”
For the next hour, June slept while the others spoke quietly outside.
The notebook photographs revealed a pattern.
Money had been routed through maintenance vendors, then paid into companies that owned parcels near proposed freight developments.
The parcels were worthless until certain zoning changes went through.
Someone had been arranging those changes.
Someone had been using Dante’s companies to finance them.
Ruiz closed the folder.
“This is larger than one attempt on Ms. Aldridge’s life.”
Dante looked through the window in June’s door.
“She found it.”
“Yes.”
“And Roland knew.”
“Possibly.”
“He knew,” Dante said. “He screened every document coming to my office.”
Ruiz regarded him steadily.
“Then the pregnancy may have given him a convenient explanation for symptoms he expected people to ignore.”
Dante felt cold.
He had been ready to fire June.
Roland had known exactly what story Dante would believe.
A failing employee.
A complicated pregnancy.
A woman who couldn’t keep up.
Ruiz’s phone vibrated.
She read the message, then looked at him.
“Celeste Kane is downstairs.”
Dante frowned.
“Who told her?”
“She called our office. Said she has information about Roland.”
Wren folded her arms.
“Convenient.”
Ruiz nodded.
“It might be.”
Beyond the glass, June stirred in her sleep, one hand moving toward her stomach.
Dante watched her.
Then he turned back to the detective.
“Ask Celeste what happened to the last person who questioned those invoices.”
Ruiz’s eyes sharpened.
“There was someone before June?”
Dante remembered a resignation he had barely read.
A young accountant.
A farewell email.
A name Roland had told him to forget.
May you like
“Yes,” he said.
“And I think I know where to start.”
