Chapter 30 - The Inside Man
The elation of the deposition victory evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold, metallic dread that coated the back of my throat. I excused myself from the boardroom, Marcus matching my stride as we hurried down the executive corridor toward my private office.
Frank was waiting inside, the heavy oak doors already locked behind him. The security chief looked paler than I had ever seen him. He was standing over my father's desk, looking down at a printed transcript of Julian's phone records.
"What is it, Frank?" I asked, my pulse hammering against my ribs. "Did Victor get a tip-off? Is he running?"
"Victor is grounded in Costa Rica. The local authorities have already seized his passport," Frank said, his voice unusually tight. He didn't look triumphant. He looked terrified. "This isn't about Victor. It’s about the fixer. Julian."
Marcus stepped forward, his eyes locking onto the transcript. "Sarah said the FBI had Julian in custody. He confessed."
"He did," Frank nodded grimly. "Julian gave up Victor without a second thought. But my contact inside the federal field office sent me the raw data dump from Julian's burner phone. The FBI only focused on the calls Julian made to Costa Rica. They missed the local metadata."
Frank spun the transcript around so I could read it. There were dozens of outgoing calls logged in the hours leading up to the break-in at my estate. Most of them were encrypted data bursts to Victor. But there was one number, highlighted in yellow highlighter, that Julian had called repeatedly. Three times before the break-in, and twice immediately after he cloned my passport.
"It's a local Chicago area code," I said, staring at the number. It looked vaguely familiar, tickling the back of my memory, but I couldn't place it. "Who does this belong to?"
"I ran a reverse trace through the telecom provider," Frank said, his jaw clenching. "It’s not a burner phone, Mrs. Cole. It’s a registered corporate cell phone. Billed directly to Vance & Mercer Logistics."
The air left my lungs in a sharp rush. "One of my employees was talking to the man who broke into my house?"
"Not just an employee, Claire," Marcus said quietly, his finger tracing the ten-digit number on the paper. I looked up at my husband, seeing the dark realization mirroring my own. He recognized the number.
"Whose phone is it, Marcus?" I whispered.
Frank answered before Marcus could. "It belongs to Arthur Vance."
The room spun. I grabbed the edge of the desk to steady myself. "No. That’s impossible. Arthur was framed. Victor used Arthur's name to open the offshore account. We proved that. Arthur was horrified when we told him."
"Arthur was horrified because we caught the transfer," Marcus said, the terrible, ugly truth assembling itself in his brilliant, analytical mind. "Claire, think about it. Victor is ruthless, but he's not a ghost. He couldn't operate inside the Vance network for years without someone on the inside holding the door open. Someone who had the authority to override audits. Someone who drafted your father's legal documents."
"Arthur drafted the unsigned trust amendment," I breathed, my mind flashing back to the day the forged document was discovered. "He claimed Victor forged it. But Arthur was the one who brought it to my attention. Arthur was the one who told my father the foundation needed a reserve. Arthur is the only one who had the unrestricted clearance to bypass Elena's security badge."
"He's been playing you from the beginning," Frank said, his voice rough with anger. "Victor was the architect of the theft, but Arthur was the gatekeeper. When Victor’s scheme started falling apart, Arthur realized the feds were closing in. He orchestrated the break-in at your house, using Julian, to force the wire transfer. He wanted to frame you so completely that the board would oust you, leaving him as the sole remaining executor of the Vance estate."
Tears of betrayal, hot and bitter, stung my eyes. Arthur Vance wasn't just a board member. He was the man who had held my hand at my father’s funeral. He was the man who had stood by me when I evicted Ethan. He had played the loyal uncle, the protective counselor, all while quietly bleeding my family’s legacy dry from the inside out.
"Where is he?" I asked, my voice dropping into a register so cold it surprised even me. The shock was fading, replaced by a ruthless, absolute demand for justice.
"He’s not in the building," Frank said, checking his tablet. "His badge swiped out of the executive parking garage twenty minutes ago, right after the deposition ended. He knows we have Julian. He knows it’s only a matter of time before the phone records are fully processed."
"He’s running," Marcus said, already moving toward the door. "He has a private charter membership at Midway Airport."
"Call Sarah," I told Frank, grabbing my coat. "Tell her to get the federal prosecutor on the phone and issue an emergency arrest warrant for Arthur Vance for corporate treason and conspiracy."
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I looked around my father’s office one last time, my eyes resting on the framed photograph of the two of us at the old warehouse. The men who had tried to steal his dream had underestimated the daughter he left behind. They had thought my kindness was a weakness. They were about to find out it was merely a choice.
"Let’s go, Marcus," I said, stepping out into the hallway. "We have one last ghost to catch."
