Her Name in Shadows (Kings of Blood and Shadow #3)

CHAPTER 1

NORA

The first dead man is hidden inside a freight invoice.

Daniel Voss Consulting.

The vendor appears three times in Aurelia Freight’s accounts. Each payment is exactly forty-eight thousand dollars, divided between two subsidiaries and approved less than a minute apart. There is no contract, no tax form, no email trail, and no evidence that Daniel Voss ever consulted anyone.

Fraud is rarely subtle because criminals are stupid. It is subtle because intelligent people understand which details tired employees stop questioning.

I open the original transaction record and compare the approval dates.

The office around me has gone quiet enough that I can hear the ventilation system labor above the ceiling.

Most of the lights on our floor switched themselves off half an hour ago, leaving my office lit by the desk lamp and the blue-white glare of two monitors.

Beyond the glass wall, downtown Chicago is a grid of windows and moving headlights, every person outside apparently possessing the good judgment to go home.

I search Daniel Voss’s name.

The first result is an obituary.

My hand stops over the mouse.

Fifty-two years old. Former warehouse supervisor. Survived by a daughter and two grandchildren. He died eleven days after the third payment.

Heart attack, according to the notice.

I read it twice, although the words do not change.

A coincidence is not evidence. It is an invitation to keep looking.

I return to the ledger and search for another vendor with the same approval pattern.

Maribel Santos Advisory.

Two payments. Thirty-two thousand dollars each. No contract.

Maribel Santos disappeared from Cicero fourteen months ago. Her car was found near the river with her purse inside. No body.

The skin at the base of my neck prickles.

I sit back and look through the glass wall of my office. The corridor is empty. Edward Pryce’s door is closed, the brass nameplate reflecting a thin stripe of emergency lighting. Mina left at seven after threatening to report me to the Department of Labor for crimes against dinner.

I almost call her.

Instead, I lock my office door.

The small click sounds embarrassingly inadequate.

I return to the data and isolate every transaction approved in the same way: split payments, matching minutes, missing contracts. There are twenty-three. The vendor descriptions vary, but an internal note appears beside each one.

Closure.

The word is bland enough to survive a casual review. Close an account. Close a contract. Close a problem.

I create a new worksheet and add names, dates, amounts, approval credentials, and anything public I can verify. By the seventh entry, the pattern stops being a theory.

One recipient died in a boating accident.

Another was shot during a robbery in which nothing was stolen.

A third vanished after leaving a restaurant owned by a Bellandi holding company.

The Bellandi name is not unfamiliar. No one conducts a corporate investigation in Chicago without recognizing it, even if everyone pretends the family’s interests begin and end with logistics, restaurants, construction, and charitable foundations.

Aurelia Freight is supposed to be the respectable center of that network.

I stare at the word Closure until the letters lose shape.

These are not payments to the people named.

They are payments for them.

My phone sits facedown beside the keyboard. I turn it over, then stop before unlocking it.

If this is what it appears to be, calling the police from the office would be reckless. Calling Edward would be worse. He assigned me to Aurelia personally after spending six months pretending I was not ready to lead a major investigation. At the time, I mistook the decision for reluctant respect.

That interpretation now feels optimistic.

I begin preserving evidence.

Not everything. Copying the full database would trigger security controls I do not understand yet. I export the transaction histories, authentication logs, and vendor records tied to the first eight names. Enough to prove a pattern. Not enough to expose what I found if someone notices the transfer.

The progress bar reaches sixty-three percent.

A sound passes through the corridor.

Not a footstep. Something lighter. Fabric against glass, perhaps.

I freeze.

The progress bar reaches seventy-one.

“Security?” I call.

No answer.

The building maintains an overnight guard in the lobby, but he does not patrol the individual offices unless an alarm activates.

Our cleaning crew finished this floor before eight.

Edward prefers that they work while someone senior remains present, a policy he once described as protecting confidentiality.

Another description has become less reassuring.

The export finishes.

I remove a slim black drive from my desk drawer and copy the files.

While it works, I photograph the most important screens with my phone.

I send one image to an encrypted storage account I created after the Halpern investigation three years ago, when evidence disappeared and my supervisor claimed I had never submitted it.

That experience taught me two things.

First, being correct does not protect you.

Second, a copy is not a copy unless someone else cannot erase it.

I create a second export containing incomplete tables and obvious gaps. That one goes onto the office drive. The real drive slides into a narrow opening in the lining of my work bag where the stitching came loose last winter.

The corridor remains silent.

I stand and move toward the glass wall.

My reflection approaches first: dark hair twisted into a knot that began the day neat and has since surrendered, pale blue shirt creased at the waist, eyes made gray-green by exhaustion and the monitor light.

The woman in the glass looks controlled.

She does not look like someone who has found a corporate system for purchasing deaths.

I place my hand against the office door but do not unlock it.

Through the glass, I can see the reception area and the first row of cubicles. The overhead lights have gone dark. A red security indicator glows near the elevator.

Nothing moves.

I tell myself I imagined the sound.

Then the handle shifts beneath my palm.

Someone tests the door from the other side.

Once.

Gently.

I step back without making a sound.

The handle returns to its original position.

My heart does not race. That would almost be easier. Instead, my body becomes intensely practical. The room contains one door, a sealed window, a desk heavy enough to be useless, and a metal lamp that could become a weapon if the situation deteriorates beyond anything covered by employee training.

I pick up the lamp.

The cord catches.

I stop it from striking the desk.

Outside, a shadow crosses the narrow strip of frosted glass beside the door.

I wait.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

The elevator chimes.

When I finally unlock the door, the corridor is empty.

I check the nearest cubicles, the conference room, and the small kitchen. The elevator display shows the car descending past the twenty-second floor. Whoever was here is already leaving.

My phone rings in my hand.

I nearly drop it.

The screen shows Mina.

I answer without greeting.

“You’re still there,” she says.

“How do you know?”

“Because you ignored the photo I sent of my dinner, which means you’re either working or dead. I chose the less inconvenient possibility.”

I look toward the elevator. “What was your dinner?”

“Do not change the subject.”

“I’m not.”

“You sound strange.”

I walk back into my office and lock the door again. “I found something in the Aurelia accounts.”

“How bad?”

I look at Daniel Voss’s obituary.

“I don’t know yet.”

It is a lie, and Mina knows it. She goes quiet.

“Do you need me to come back?”

The sensible answer is yes. The immediate answer is no, because if someone entered this floor while I was working, bringing Mina here would create a second target before I understand the first.

“I’m leaving now.”

“Nora.”

“I’ll call you when I’m home.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“I know.”

She exhales through her nose. “Parking garage or front entrance?”

“Front.”

“Share your location.”

I hesitate.

“Nora.”

“I’ll share it when I’m downstairs.”

“You are the reason warning labels exist.”

She hangs up before I can tell her that warning labels are usually written after somebody has already been injured.

I return to the ledger long enough to close files and clear the recent export history. My hand is steady until I reach for my coat.

The right pocket is turned partially inside out.

I know I did not leave it that way.

I check both pockets. Keys. Lip balm. One receipt. Nothing missing.

The interruption was not intended to steal something.

It was meant to learn whether I had found it.

I put on the coat, lift my bag, and shut down the monitors. Before leaving, I glance at the spreadsheet one last time.

Twenty-three entries.

Twenty-two people.

One row remains blank because I have not yet expanded it.

The date beside it is six months old, but the payment status is pending. Unlike the others, the vendor field does not contain a company name.

It contains initials.

N.Q.

My fingers turn cold.

I sit down again.

The entry opens slowly, as though the system has chosen this moment to become cautious. A document pane appears with a complete legal name.

Nora Elise Quinn.

My address is beneath it.

My employer.

My employee identification number.

A scheduled closure payment of seventy-five thousand dollars.

I read the creation date.

Six months ago.

Long before Aurelia Freight hired Pryce & Cole.

Long before Edward assigned me to the account.

Long before I opened the first invoice tonight.

Someone did not decide to kill me because I found the ledger.

Someone expected me to find it.

There is one additional field at the bottom of the record.

Assigned closer: R. Bellandi.