Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Fallon Hemingway had been sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor for twenty minutes because the chair made her hip ache and the couch was too far from the outlet where her laptop was charging.
There wasn’t much to look at from down here.
This sublet was barely furnished. It had a couch that sagged in the middle and a kitchen table with two chairs that didn’t match.
Through the open doorway, she could see the bedroom—a mattress on a platform frame and curtains she’d bought herself because the ones that came with the place let in too much light.
Yeah, it was shit. But it was also fine. She didn’t need much.
Her phone was propped against the base of the table leg, No-Last-Name Cassandra’s voice filling the kitchen on speaker.
“The neighborhood’s good for you. Quiet, mostly residential, good public transit access. I pulled up your building on street view and it looks like there’s a coffee shop two blocks north that has decent Wi-Fi if you need a backup workspace.”
“Already found it.” Fallon shifted her weight off her left hip, extending her leg out straight along the tile. “Their oat milk lattes are terrible, but the internet is fast.”
“That’s all that matters. How’s the setup otherwise? You getting settled?”
“Getting there. I’ve got my workstation up. Ordered a second monitor yesterday. The lighting in here is garbage for color-accurate work, but I can manage until I find something better.”
“I can send you a link for the light panel I use. Clips right onto the desk, and the color accuracy is solid.”
“Please. That would be amazing.”
“Sent. Check your email.” A brief pause, the sound of typing. “What about the rest of it? You eating actual food, or are you doing that thing where you survive on coffee and whatever’s closest to the front of the fridge?”
“I bought groceries.”
“Groceries, plural? Like a full trip?”
“I got eggs. And bread. And some of that pre-made soup from the deli section.”
“That’s not groceries. That’s a cry for help.”
“It’s a start.”
Normally, Fallon wouldn’t tolerate this sort of mother-henning. But this was the rhythm for her and Cassandra. Had been for years. Two women who had never shared a room, never sat across from each other at a restaurant, never passed a bowl of popcorn during a movie.
Their friendship existed in calls and texts and the occasional video chat where Cassandra kept the camera angled so only half her face showed. That was how Cassandra was comfortable, and Fallon had never pushed it.
They’d met in an online forum three years ago, a chronic illness group where people traded tips on managing bodies that didn’t cooperate.
Cassandra had posted a long, dry, brutally honest breakdown of how she tracked her flare days on a spreadsheet, complete with color-coded columns and a section she’d labeled Days My Immune System Chose Violence.
Fallon had laughed so hard she’d sent a direct message. They’d become fast friends.
A year later, Cassandra knew everything about Fallon. Nobody else could say that.
“So,” Cassandra said. “New city. New project.”
Fallon snickered. “That’s right up there with: New year, new you.”
“I’ve been doing preliminary research since you got to Boston. The landscape there is interesting. Lots of old money, lots of nonprofits, lots of charity circuit events. You’ll have good access.”
“That’s what I was hoping. Seattle was getting too small.”
“Seattle was getting too hot. There’s a difference.”
Fallon pulled her knee toward her chest and rotated her ankle slowly. The joint clicked twice. “It was definitely time to move.”
“You cut it too close. That last deliverable got coverage in two local outlets and a podcast. My alerts were lighting up for a week.”
“Coverage is fine. We want coverage. It’s part of the lesson.”
“Coverage means attention. Attention means someone starts looking for patterns.”
“Nobody found a pattern. And no name was attached. That’s all that matters.”
“Nobody found one yet.” Cassandra let that sit for a beat. “I’m not saying you did anything wrong. The work was clean. I’m saying the timeline on leaving was right.”
She was right, and that was the irritating part.
The work in Seattle had been clean. The execution, the exposure, the exit—all of it had gone exactly the way it was supposed to.
But exactly the way it was supposed to still meant packing up her apartment in two days and driving to a new city where she didn’t know anyone, didn’t know the streets, didn’t know which coffee shop had decent Wi-Fi.
Starting over was part of the job. Fallon just wished it didn’t always feel like a penalty for doing the job well.
“Okay, Boston is a fresh start. So tell me about the new project. What have you found?”
Cassandra’s voice shifted. Still easy, still her, but focused now. The sound of a second keyboard came through. She always kept two machines running.
“The client’s name is Malcolm Prescott. Sixty-one. Lives in Beacon Hill, one of those old brick townhouses on Mount Vernon Street. Made his money in private equity, but the interesting stuff is on the consulting side.”
“Interesting how?”
“He runs a firm called Ridgeline Advisors. On paper, they do financial restructuring for midsize companies. Corporate turnarounds, debt management, that sort of thing. Sounds very responsible.”
“But.” There was always a but. That’s what kept Fallon in business.
“But in practice, they strip assets, gut pension funds, and leave the employees holding nothing. I’ve tracked seven companies in the last twelve years they’ve done this to.
Same playbook every time. He gets brought in as a consultant, recommends a restructuring plan, shuffles the money through a series of holding entities, and the company folds within eighteen months. ”
“Seven companies.”
“Seven that I’ve confirmed. There might be more. His firm has consulted on at least a dozen, but the paper trail gets harder to follow the further back you go.”
“And the employees?”
“Lose everything. Pensions, stock options, severance packages. Every time.”
“And he walks away clean.”
“Again, every time. Two civil suits over the years, both settled out of court with NDAs. One SEC inquiry that went nowhere because his attorneys buried it in procedural challenges until the commission moved on. The people he hurts don’t have the money to match his legal team, and he knows it. That’s part of the playbook, too.”
Fallon pressed her thumb into the side of her knee where something had been tight since the gala four days ago. Multiple hours on her feet in heels, and her body was still sending her the invoice. “Give me a specific.”
“A packaging plant in Ohio. Been open forty years, couple hundred employees, most of them lifers. Prescott got brought in as a restructuring consultant. Within six months, he’d moved the entire retirement fund into a subsidiary he controlled, then dissolved it.
Two hundred people ten years from retirement, and he pulled the rug out from under every one of them.
The kicker: his consulting fee was north of four million dollars. ”
Fallon was quiet for a moment. Cassandra didn’t fill the silence. She knew what that quiet meant.
“He qualifies,” Fallon said.
“He definitely qualifies.”
“What’s his schedule look like?”
“Predictable. Not married. He’s at his Beacon Hill place most of the week.
Weekends, he’s got a second home on the Cape, Chatham, right on the water.
He’s on the board of two charities: the Boston Arts Alliance and something called the Harbor Light Foundation.
Galas, fundraisers, donor dinners. He’s deep in the circuit. ”
“Security at the house?”
“Residential-grade system. Monitored by one of the big national companies, but nothing custom. No cameras on the interior, just entry points and motion sensors on the ground floor. No personal detail. He’s got a housekeeper who comes three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and she’s usually gone by two. No live-in staff.”
“Access points?”
“Still mapping those. The townhouse shares walls on both sides, so approach options are limited on the lower floors. But there’s a service alley behind the row, and the third floor has a window that faces a flat roof on the adjacent building.
I’ll have measurements and sight lines for you by next week. ”
“What’s in the house?”
“This is where it gets good.” Cassandra’s voice lifted the way it did when she’d found something she was proud of.
“He’s a collector. Art, mostly. Contemporary and early twentieth century.
A few mid-century pieces that are worth real money, but the crown jewel is a Boldini sketch he bought at a private auction in New York last year.
Appraised at three hundred and twenty thousand.
He guts pension funds and buys art with the proceeds. ”
Fallon’s jaw tightened. She let it. On calls with Cassandra, she didn’t have to smooth out her reactions or keep her face neutral for a room full of strangers. She could let the anger land where it landed.
“The Boldini,” Fallon said. “That’s where we hurt him.”
“Yep, will make the perfect final score. And, don’t worry, I’ll find lots of other stuff for you to relieve him of before ending with the Boldini. He’s known for showing off his watch collection. I’m sure there’s other pressure points, too.”
Fallon picked up the phone and almost cradled it. “Good. I’m already excited.”
“It’s perfect. First the petty thefts. Then we send all his past sins to the press—the businesses he’s swindled, the pension funds, all of it—and while he’s dealing with journalists knocking on his door, he discovers his prized Boldini is gone.
Bought with money he stole, and now someone’s stolen it from him. ”
“Can he replace it?”
“Not easily.” Keys clicked on Cassandra’s end. “It was a private sale, and Boldini sketches at that level don’t come up often. He’ll feel it. He’ll feel all of it.”