Chapter 16 - The Voice on the Flash Drive
They listened to Owen’s recording inside a rented house outside Brattleboro.
Roman hated the location.
Tessa knew because he had criticized the locks, the windows, the road, the neighboring trees, and the fact that the refrigerator made “an unnecessarily loud mechanical sound.”
“You’re nervous,” she said.
“I’m observant.”
“You threatened a refrigerator.”
“It startled me.”
Celeste almost smiled.
It was the first hint of anything human on her face since Owen disappeared.
Dante inserted the flash drive into an isolated laptop.
The recording began with rustling.
Then Marcus Vance’s voice.
“You promised Bellamy would never find out.”
Another man answered.
Quiet.
Measured.
Elias Ward.
“He won’t.”
Tessa recognized the voice immediately.
Vance continued.
“What about the Callahan girl?”
A pause.
“She is irrelevant unless she remembers the warehouse.”
Tessa’s hands clenched.
Then Vance laughed.
“She was sixteen.”
“Sixteen-year-olds become adults.”
Another pause.
“If she starts digging, remind her what happened to Sean.”
Vance asked something muffled.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“My father gave Murphy the order. Victor Bellamy paid for the funeral.”
The recording ended abruptly.
Celeste cried silently.
Roman stood completely still.
Tessa looked at him.
“That could mean anything.”
He gave her a dark look.
“Don’t protect me from the truth.”
She recognized her own words.
“Fair.”
Dante replayed the recording.
“My father gave Murphy the order.”
Arthur Ward.
Not Victor.
The ambiguity that had haunted Tessa vanished.
Elias had been speaking about Arthur.
Arthur Ward ordered Murphy to kill Sean.
Victor Bellamy paid for Sean’s funeral.
Tessa remembered the anonymous message.
ASK ROMAN WHAT VICTOR OFFERED HIM.
It had been designed deliberately to divide them.
Not reveal truth.
Create suspicion.
“Elias wants us fighting,” she said.
Roman nodded.
“And if we distrust each other, we stop looking at him.”
Celeste covered her face.
“I should have told you.”
Roman looked at her.
“Yes.”
His voice was cold but not cruel.
“I was scared.”
“So was Tessa.”
Celeste lowered her hands.
Roman continued.
“She warned me anyway.”
Tessa stepped between them.
“This isn’t helping Owen.”
Roman’s anger disappeared behind calculation.
“Tell me everything that happened yesterday.”
Celeste took a breath.
“Owen left his apartment around ten. He was supposed to meet me for lunch. He never arrived.”
“Phone?”
“Found behind his building.”
“Car?”
“He doesn’t have one.”
“Any messages?”
“One.”
She handed over her phone.
The message had arrived from an unknown number.
STOP DIGGING INTO YOUR FATHER’S PAST.
Tessa frowned.
“Your father?”
Celeste nodded.
“Our father was Charles Arden.”
Roman knew the name.
“Arden Maritime?”
Celeste stared at him.
“You know it?”
“Everyone in freight knew it. Charles Arden controlled four terminals between Boston and Halifax before he died.”
Celeste’s face tightened.
“Heart attack.”
Dante searched quickly.
He looked up.
“Same year Arthur Ward disappeared.”
Roman and Tessa exchanged a glance.
Celeste stood.
“No. My father had nothing to do with any of this.”
“That’s what I said about mine,” Roman replied.
The room went silent.
They spent the next three hours pulling corporate records.
Arden Maritime had sold its terminal leases shortly before Charles Arden’s death.
The purchaser was Halcyon Logistics.
A sister company of the same Halcyon Medical Trust that had funded Clara’s treatment.
Tessa leaned back.
“This thing connects everybody.”
Roman nodded.
“Arthur Ward used charities, shipping companies, medical trusts, and port leases to move money.”
“Then Elias inherited more than his father’s name.”
Dante turned the screen.
A final transfer appeared.
Twelve million dollars from Halcyon Logistics had entered a company called Northstar Property Management.
The company owned six buildings.
One was an abandoned inn thirty miles north.
Celeste stood abruptly.
“Owen loves that area. He and our father used to fish near there.”
Roman was already moving.
Tessa caught his arm.
“Wait.”
He looked at her.
“If Elias wants us to find that place, charging inside is exactly what he expects.”
Roman stopped.
“What do you suggest?”
Tessa looked again at the property records.
Then at the utility bills.
An abandoned inn should not have drawn electricity every month.
But this one did.
High usage.
Regular deliveries.
A staffed building pretending to be empty.
“We don’t go to the inn,” Tessa said.
“We watch who leaves it.”
Dante smiled.
“Now she sounds like you.”
Roman looked offended.
“She sounds more patient than me.”
For six hours, they waited.
Near midnight, a black SUV left the old inn.
Dante’s team followed from a distance.
The SUV did not head toward Boston.
It drove south.
Toward New York.
At 2:17 a.m., it crossed the George Washington Bridge.
At 2:42, it entered Manhattan.
At 3:03, it stopped beneath Bellamy Holdings headquarters.
Roman stared at the tracking map.
Nobody spoke.
The elevator records showed the vehicle’s passenger entering the building with executive clearance.
At 3:11, the forty-ninth-floor lights came on.
Elias Ward was back in his office.
But the security camera showed someone else getting out of the SUV before the garage door closed.
A young blond man.
Bruised.
Hands bound.
Owen Arden.
Celeste screamed his name.
Roman leaned toward the screen.
“Elias didn’t hide him from us.”
Tessa understood.
“He brought Owen directly into your building.”
May you like
Roman’s expression turned deadly.
“He wants me to come home.”
