Chapter 6 – The Missing Accountant
Chapter 6 – The Missing Accountant
The silence lasted only a heartbeat.
Then Detective Laura Hayes was already issuing orders.
"Lock down every exit."
She turned to another officer.
"Notify Highway Patrol."
"And put Vanessa Monroe on every statewide alert."
The detective on the other end of the phone sounded breathless.
"It happened less than ten minutes ago."
"How?"
Hayes demanded.
"Transport vehicle."
"The rear tire blew."
"The officers stopped."
"When they opened the door..."
"...she was gone."
Hayes' jaw tightened.
"People in handcuffs don't simply disappear."
"No, ma'am."
"They don't."
She ended the call and looked toward Adrian.
"Someone helped her."
Samuel Reeves slowly closed his briefcase.
"I was afraid this would happen."
Adrian turned sharply.
"You expected it?"
Samuel nodded.
"The moment Victor realized his financial records were exposed..."
"...everyone who knew too much became expendable."
Harold Bennett lowered his head.
"That includes me."
Samuel looked directly at him.
"No."
"You were never his biggest problem."
Harold frowned.
"Then who was?"
Samuel answered quietly.
"The accountant."
"The accountant?"
Samuel nodded.
"Victor had someone managing the shell companies."
"The only person besides Victor who understood where every dollar went."
Hayes immediately took out her notebook.
"Name."
"Arthur Collins."
Harold looked stunned.
"No..."
"It can't be."
"You know him?"
Harold nodded slowly.
"He worked under me for nearly twelve years."
"He resigned three months ago."
"Without notice."
Samuel sighed.
"He didn't resign."
"He disappeared."
Within an hour, Adrian, Hayes, Samuel, and two detectives arrived at Arthur Collins' apartment.
The hallway outside Unit 9B was strangely quiet.
The building manager unlocked the door.
"I haven't seen him in almost a week."
The apartment smelled faintly of bleach.
Too clean.
Far too clean.
Hayes stopped in the doorway.
"Nobody touch anything."
Crime scene technicians spread through the rooms.
Every drawer had been emptied.
Every shelf wiped clean.
The computer was gone.
The phone charger remained plugged into the wall.
Whoever had been there hadn't packed.
They had erased.
One detective emerged from the bedroom.
"Detective."
Hayes walked over.
"What did you find?"
He pointed toward the carpet.
A large section had recently been replaced.
The color was slightly different.
Hayes knelt beside it.
"Cut this open."
Minutes later, technicians peeled back the new carpet.
Beneath it...
Dark stains covered the wooden floor.
A forensic specialist crouched beside them.
He sprayed a chemical solution.
Instantly, the room glowed blue beneath the forensic light.
Blood.
A lot of it.
Adrian felt his stomach tighten.
"Is it Arthur's?"
"We won't know until DNA testing."
"But someone bled here."
The kitchen revealed another surprise.
Behind the refrigerator, hidden inside a narrow gap in the wall, technicians found a small black notebook wrapped in plastic.
Hayes carefully opened it.
Every page contained handwritten figures.
Account numbers.
Dates.
Transfer amounts.
Nothing else.
No names.
Only initials.
Harold leaned closer.
"I know this format."
"You do?"
"It's Arthur's shorthand."
"Can you read it?"
Harold nodded slowly.
"Most of it."
The first few pages documented ordinary company expenses.
Office maintenance.
Payroll.
Construction invoices.
Then everything changed.
The entries became coded.
VL — 2.4M
VM — 500K
NR — 1.8M
BH — 900K
Adrian frowned.
"Victor Langston."
"Vanessa Monroe."
Harold nodded.
"The others..."
"I don't recognize."
Samuel pointed toward another page.
"There."
A single line had been circled several times.
RD — CLOSED
Adrian froze.
"RD?"
Harold whispered,
"Robert DeLuca."
Hayes looked up.
"What does 'Closed' mean?"
No one answered immediately.
Finally Samuel spoke.
"In Arthur's system..."
"'Closed' meant dead."
The room fell silent.
The notebook contained something even more disturbing.
Near the final pages, Arthur had stopped using initials.
Instead, he had written complete sentences.
Most had been crossed out.
One remained untouched.
If anything happens to me, Victor knows I kept copies.
Hayes immediately looked around the apartment.
"Find those copies."
Every officer began searching again.
Walls.
Furniture.
Ceiling panels.
Air vents.
Nothing.
Arthur had hidden them well.
Or someone had found them first.
Adrian wandered into the small home office.
Family photographs still decorated the desk.
Arthur with his wife.
Arthur fishing.
Arthur holding a little girl at her graduation.
Normal memories.
Normal life.
Until one photograph caught Adrian's attention.
Arthur stood beside another man.
Both smiled at the camera.
Adrian's heart skipped.
The second man was Nicholas DeLuca.
The mysterious brother Samuel had mentioned.
"Hayes."
She crossed the room.
"What is it?"
Adrian handed her the photograph.
Samuel stared at it.
"I haven't seen Nicholas in over twenty years."
Harold frowned.
"So Arthur worked with him too."
Samuel nodded.
"Long before Victor hired him."
Another thread.
Another connection.
Just as the search seemed exhausted, one of the forensic technicians called out.
"I've got something."
He held up an ordinary wooden pencil.
"There was weight inside."
He twisted off the eraser.
A tightly rolled strip of paper slid out.
Hayes carefully unfolded it.
Three words.
One address.
Riverside Storage 214.
The storage facility sat on the outskirts of the city.
Rows of metal units stretched beneath gray afternoon skies.
The manager unlocked Unit 214.
"I haven't seen Mr. Collins for weeks."
The heavy door rattled upward.
Dust drifted through the sunlight.
Boxes filled the room.
Accounting files.
Tax records.
Old furniture.
Nothing unusual.
Until Adrian noticed the far wall.
One box sat completely alone.
Labeled only:
PERSONAL
Inside lay dozens of financial ledgers.
Every shell company Victor had ever created.
Original contracts.
Forged signatures.
Fake invoices.
The missing records.
Harold stared in disbelief.
"My God..."
"This is everything."
At the bottom of the final box rested a thick brown envelope.
Across the front, Arthur had written:
Open only if I disappear.
Hayes carefully broke the seal.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
To whoever finds this,
I helped Victor Langston steal more money than I can count.
I told myself I was only following orders.
That lie became easier every year.
Adrian kept reading.
Robert DeLuca discovered us.
Elena DeLuca discovered us.
The next person who discovers the truth...
won't live long enough to tell it.
The final paragraph was written in different ink, as though added later.
I'm meeting someone tonight.
If I don't come back...
don't look for me.
Look for Nicholas.
Adrian looked up.
"Nicholas again."
Samuel nodded grimly.
"We've been chasing Victor."
"But Nicholas..."
"...may have been the one pulling the strings."
Before anyone could speak again, Hayes's phone vibrated.
She answered.
Her expression changed instantly.
"What?"
A pause.
"When?"
Another pause.
She slowly lowered the phone.
Adrian knew before she spoke.
"What happened?"
Hayes looked at him.
"The blood from Arthur's apartment..."
She swallowed.
"It isn't Arthur's."
"Then whose is it?"
"The DNA belongs to..."
She checked the lab report one more time, almost hoping it would change.
Then she whispered,
"Vanessa Monroe."
The room fell into stunned silence.
Because if Vanessa had escaped police custody only hours earlier...
How could her blood have been sitting in Arthur Collins' apartment for days?
Unless she had never gone there to hide.
May you like
She had gone there to silence the only accountant who knew where the millions had really gone.
End of Chapter 6
