Chapter 4 - The Midnight Ride to Queens
Ten minutes later, the rear doors of a sleek black Maybach closed behind Arthur and me, sealing out the hum of Manhattan traffic. The interior was plush, quiet, and smelled faintly of cedar and expensive leather. I had left my apron with a weeping Gregory, who couldn't stop thanking me for saving his job, and Henri, who looked entirely convinced that I was about to be dumped into the East River.
Arthur sat in the far corner of the backseat, staring out the tinted window as the Manhattan skyline dissolved into the utilitarian concrete of the Queensboro Bridge.
"You think I'm a monster," he said suddenly, breaking the long silence.
"I think you threw a five-hundred-dollar crystal glass at an antique wall," I replied candidly, looking down at my worn black shoes held together by industrial glue. "And I think you made a sixty-three-year-old grandfather cry because he accidentally smudged a tablecloth."
Arthur let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh that sounded more like a cough. "Gregory didn't smudge the tablecloth. He set down a bottle of 1982 Chateau Margaux. It was my father's favorite wine. The wine Rollins ordered specifically for tonight's 'celebration.'"
He turned his head toward me, the streetlights outside casting sharp shadows across his angular cheekbones.
"My father didn't die in an accident, Emma."
The words hung in the quiet car like an ice pick.
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice barely audible over the hum of the tires.
"The Swiss authorities called it pilot error in extreme weather," Arthur said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, the way people speak when the trauma is too massive to process. "A sudden mechanical failure of the tail rotor. But three days before he flew to Europe, he called me from a burner phone. He said he had discovered a black hole in our European logistics network. Hundreds of millions of dollars being laundered through cold-storage shipping routes."
My breath caught in my throat. "Northstar Cold Chain."
"Northstar," Arthur confirmed with a grim nod. "My father was going to dismantle the entire operation and hand the evidence over to the Department of Justice. He told me that if he didn't make it back, the people behind the laundering would try to force me to complete the acquisition anyway—to absorb Northstar into Caldwell International and bury the evidence forever."
"And Rollins?"
"Rollins has been the COO for fourteen years," Arthur whispered. "He's the one who structured the acquisition. For the past eleven months, the board has been threatening to remove me for incompetence because I refused to sign the final paperwork. They told me I was paranoid. They told me grief was destroying my mind."
Arthur reached out and touched the battered leather notebook resting on his lap.
"Every day since he died, I've walked into that boardroom feeling like I was losing my sanity. Until tonight. When you mentioned counter stool number four."
The car turned onto Northern Boulevard, slowing as it approached the familiar, crumbling brick apartment complex I called home.
May you like
"My apartment isn't fancy," I warned, reaching for the door handle.
"I grew up in a trailer in Duluth until I was twelve, Emma," Arthur replied softly, opening his own door. "Lead the way."
