Chapter 6 - THE PHOTOGRAPH IN HER FATHER’S COAT
“They hired me because they planned to frame me.”
Khloe said it again because the first time didn’t sound real.
Gabriel looked at Chad.
“Who hired her?”
Chad’s face tightened.
“I approved the paperwork.”
“Who selected her?”
“Human resources sent me three finalists.”
“Who told you which one to choose?”
Chad hesitated.
“Nobody.”
Khloe watched him.
“Chad.”
He looked at her.
“I got a recommendation.”
“From whom?”
“A board member.”
Gabriel’s voice dropped.
“Name.”
Chad swallowed.
“Martin Vale.”
Adrian looked confused.
“Vale hasn’t been on the board in six years.”
“Apparently HR still accepts his referrals.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
“Martin Vale is dead.”
Khloe felt cold.
Another dead man’s authority.
Not a fake death.
Something worse.
Someone was deliberately using the names of people who could no longer answer questions.
“My father.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Salvatore.”
Adrian whispered, “Martin.”
Khloe stood.
“Three dead men.”
All connected to old Obsidian finances.
All being used to create a story.
She picked up Thomas’s black coat again.
The lining had been cut where Adrian removed the flash card eighteen years earlier.
But the left side felt heavier.
Khloe ran her hand down the seam.
Something crackled.
Adrian frowned.
“There was nothing else.”
“You checked one pocket.”
Khloe used a small sewing knife from Evelyn’s dressing table to loosen the stitches.
A photograph slid out.
Her father.
Thomas Harrison stood outside a diner with three people.
Evelyn Falcone.
Martin Vale.
And a woman Khloe knew immediately.
Her mother.
Rebecca Harrison.
Khloe sat down.
“My mother was involved?”
Gabriel stared at the photograph.
“You never knew?”
“No.”
Rebecca had died when Khloe was nineteen.
Cancer.
Eight months from diagnosis to funeral.
She had never spoken about the Falcones.
Never mentioned Evelyn.
Never mentioned Martin Vale.
Khloe turned the picture over.
Thomas had written:
REBECCA KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINALS ARE.
Beneath that:
DO NOT LET SALVATORE USE ROSA AGAIN.
Adrian covered his mouth.
“My mother.”
Khloe looked at him.
“Thomas was still protecting her.”
After Adrian betrayed him.
Adrian’s eyes closed briefly.
“Yes.”
Khloe stared at the photograph.
Her mother had known.
All those years.
The little apartment.
The unpaid bills.
The whispers about her father.
Rebecca Harrison had known why.
And said nothing.
Anger rose fast.
Gabriel recognized it.
“My mother did the same thing.”
Khloe looked at him.
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No.”
He didn’t try to defend either woman.
“It only means silence was inherited by more than one family.”
Khloe hated how true that felt.
Marco called from the doorway.
“I traced the legacy access.”
Gabriel turned.
“And?”
“Somebody reactivated Salvatore Falcone’s credentials eleven months ago.”
“One month before Khloe was hired.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Marco looked at Chad.
“The Obsidian.”
Chad shook his head.
“Not me.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“What machine?”
“Executive terminal upstairs.”
Chad went still.
“That office is locked.”
“Who has access?”
“Me. Security. Event directors.”
Khloe looked at Gabriel.
“And former managers?”
Chad hesitated.
“One.”
“Who?”
A strange expression crossed his face.
“Dennis Calder.”
Adrian whispered, “No.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You know him.”
“He ran the Obsidian eighteen years ago.”
Khloe felt the next piece slide into place.
“During the original theft.”
Adrian nodded.
“Salvatore fired him.”
“Why?”
“We thought he had helped Thomas manipulate the accounts.”
Khloe almost laughed.
“Another person blamed alongside my father.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Calder now?”
Chad answered.
“Consults for hospitality groups.”
“Does he still come here?”
“Twice a year.”
“When was the last time?”
Chad’s face changed.
“Eleven months ago.”
Silence.
Gabriel picked up his coat.
Khloe stopped him.
“We don’t chase him.”
He looked at her.
“He reactivated dead credentials.”
“Maybe.”
“Khloe—”
“That is what someone wants this to look like.”
Gabriel paused.
She pointed at the pattern.
“Every step gives us a convenient guilty person.”
“First Chad.”
“Yes.”
“Then Adrian.”
“Yes.”
“Now Calder.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel understood.
“Someone is feeding us suspects.”
“Exactly.”
Adrian looked at Thomas’s coat.
“Then we need the originals.”
Khloe stared at the message.
REBECCA KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINALS ARE.
Her mother had died seven years ago.
But Rebecca had kept almost everything.
Photographs.
Birthday cards.
Receipts from grocery stores Khloe barely remembered.
And one object nobody had touched since her death.
A wooden sewing box.
Khloe’s grandmother made it.
Rebecca kept tax papers beneath the removable tray because she believed burglars never stole thread.
Khloe stood.
“I know where my mother would hide paper.”
Her apartment was twenty minutes away.
Gabriel insisted Marco come.
Khloe insisted Chad stay behind.
“You don’t trust me?” Chad asked.
She looked at the purple marks beginning to form around her wrist.
“No.”
He lowered his eyes.
Fair enough.
The sewing box sat on Khloe’s bedroom closet shelf beneath old blankets.
She put it on the kitchen table.
Inside were buttons.
Needles.
Embroidery thread.
A photograph of Khloe at graduation.
Under the tray—
Nothing.
Her heart sank.
Then Gabriel picked up the box.
“It’s heavy.”
Khloe turned it over.
A second wooden panel covered the bottom.
She pried it loose.
Inside was a white envelope.
And a bracelet.
Cheap silver.
Three small charms.
A calculator.
A coffee cup.
A tiny book.
Khloe remembered it instantly.
Her father gave it to her mother on their fifteenth anniversary.
Rebecca stopped wearing it shortly before Thomas lost his business.
Khloe lifted the bracelet.
The calculator charm opened.
Inside was a tiny memory card.
Gabriel said nothing.
Khloe inserted it into Marco’s laptop.
Four folders appeared.
EMPLOYEE CLAIMS.
VENDOR TRANSFERS.
MEDICAL TRUST.
FINAL.
Khloe opened FINAL.
One scanned page appeared.
Thomas Harrison’s handwriting.
The first line read:
SALVATORE DID NOT TAKE THE MONEY.
Gabriel inhaled.
Khloe read the next line.
Neither did Dennis Calder.
Or Martin Vale.
Her eyes moved downward.
The final sentence was underlined twice.
Evelyn knows who did.
Khloe looked at Gabriel.
“Your mother.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“She protected the person who stole the fund.”
Adrian had joined by video from the Falcone house.
His voice came through the laptop.
“Why would she?”
Khloe opened the EMPLOYEE CLAIMS folder.
Dozens of names.
Payments.
Medical notes.
One scanned receipt caught her attention.
Employee 27.
Rosa Moretti.
Adrian’s mother.
A handwritten authorization appeared at the bottom.
EVELYN FALCONE.
Khloe frowned.
“She approved Rosa’s payment.”
Adrian went still.
“What?”
“Forty-nine thousand dollars.”
“I told you. My mother never received it.”
Khloe zoomed in.
The payment wasn’t sent to Rosa.
It went to a hospital billing company.
She searched the vendor name.
Defunct.
Then she recognized the address.
Gabriel did too.
“That building belonged to my mother.”
Khloe looked at him.
“Why would Evelyn approve a fake payment through her own property?”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“She wouldn’t.”
“Unless she wanted someone to find it.”
Khloe opened the metadata.
The original invoice included a handwritten note cropped from the scanned copy.
She restored the full image.
Four words appeared at the bottom.
ASK ABOUT THE BLUE DRESS.
Gabriel stared.
Adrian whispered, “Oh God.”
Khloe looked at him.
“What blue dress?”
Adrian didn’t answer.
“Adrian.”
His face had changed completely.
“My mother had one.”
“So?”
“She wore it to the Obsidian winter benefit.”
“The night Thomas investigated the fund?”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“And Evelyn borrowed it before the meeting.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Why?”
Adrian looked at him.
“To fool the security cameras.”
Khloe’s pulse accelerated.
Eighteen years earlier, two women had deliberately dressed alike.
One was Evelyn Falcone.
The other was Rosa Moretti.
One entered the executive office.
The cameras recorded the blue dress.
Everyone assumed it was Rosa.
Khloe finally understood why Rosa’s employee number appeared beside the missing payments.
Someone had used her identity.
Gabriel asked, “Who was Evelyn hiding?”
Adrian looked sick.
“She wasn’t hiding someone else.”
He stared at his mother’s claim form.
May you like
“She was hiding herself.”
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