CHAPTER 9 THE MOLE REVEALED #2
Evelyn’s fingers stilled over the keyboard. Marsh’s signature. His rushed approvals. His sudden vacation request two days after the breach. "Maybe. Or he’s just sloppy."
Dario’s voice was low. "Find out."
Evelyn opened a new search, typing in Marsh’s recent activity. Calendar entries, emails, expense reports. Nothing obvious. But then—there. A withdrawal. Large. Cash. The day before he left.
Maya leaned in. "That’s not sloppy. That’s payment."
Evelyn’s pulse kicked up a notch. She cross-referenced the date with Lisa’s sister’s medical records. A deposit into the hospital’s billing portal. Same afternoon.
"Got it." She turned the screen toward them. "They’re connected. Marsh facilitated. Lisa executed."
Dario’s expression didn’t change, but his shoulders tensed. "Where’s Marsh now?"
Evelyn pulled up his travel itinerary. "Costa Rica. One-way ticket."
Maya cursed under her breath. "He’s gone. We’re not getting him back."
Evelyn’s mouth curved, thin and sharp. "No. But Lisa doesn’t know that."
Dario’s gaze locked onto hers. Understanding passed between them, silent and lethal.
Maya caught it too. "You’re going to use her to draw out the rest."
Evelyn stood, smoothing her jacket. "We give her a new file. Something juicy. Something they’ll want."
Dario reached for the door. "Make it convincing."
The hinges groaned as he left. Maya lingered, arms folded. "And if she doesn’t bite?"
Evelyn gathered the papers, stacking them into a neat pile. "She will."
She didn’t say the rest. Didn’t need to.
Lisa Chen loved her sister.
That made her predictable.
And in their line of work, predictable was the same as helpless.
Evelyn tapped her phone screen, watching Lisa's contact photo—a beach shot from last summer—blink twice before connecting. The hum of the office printer filled the silence between rings.
"Hey, you free for lunch?" Evelyn kept her voice light, the way she did when lying to civilians. "I need to pick your brain about something."
Lisa's laugh crackled through the speaker. "Depends. Are you finally admitting you need my help with the Vitale account?"
Evelyn glanced at the closed conference room door where Dario waited, his shadow visible through the frosted glass. "Actually, yeah. He wants to meet tomorrow—private venue, no paper trail. You know how these finance guys are about discretion."
A pause. The printer jammed with a mechanical whine.
"Wait, Dario Vitale asked for you specifically?" Lisa's tone sharpened. "Not through legal? Not through the partners?"
Evelyn pressed a thumb against the edge of her desk, the wood grain rough under her nail. "He mentioned your name. Said you'd vetted some of his offshore holdings last quarter."
Another beat of silence. Through the window, a delivery van double-parked outside, its hazard lights blinking in steady amber pulses.
"Bullshit." Lisa's chair creaked as she leaned forward. "I've never touched Vitale's files. Compliance red-flagged him six months ago. What's really going on?"
Evelyn exhaled through her nose. The van's driver emerged, hauling a dolly stacked with cardboard boxes marked Fragile.
"Fine. He's got a problem with one of our other clients. Wants to discuss it off-book." She lowered her voice. "And he implied you'd know which one."
Lisa's breath hitched—just once, barely audible. The printer spat out a wrinkled page.
"Where?"
"Pier 17 warehouse. Midnight." Evelyn watched the deliveryman struggle with a loose box strap. "He said to come alone."
A muffled sound, like Lisa was covering the receiver. When she spoke again, her voice had gone flat. "Tell him I'll be there."
The line died. Evelyn set the phone down next to the still-warm printer pages. The conference room door opened, Dario's polished Oxfords appearing first in the threshold.
"Well?" He didn't step fully into the office, lingering in that space between rooms.
Evelyn picked up a stray paperclip, bending the metal back and forth. "She took the bait. But she knows something."
Dario's cufflink gleamed as he checked his watch. "Good. Let's see who she tells before midnight."
Outside, the delivery van pulled away, leaving a streak of oil shimmering on the asphalt.
Evelyn dropped the paperclip into the desk drawer, the faint ping of metal on metal swallowed by the hum of the HVAC. Dario’s gaze lingered on her hands—too steady, she realized—before flicking to the window.
"Keep an eye on her movements," he said. "If she’s smart, she won’t go home first."
A notification buzzed on Evelyn’s monitor: Lisa’s calendar had just updated. Out of office—personal errands. The timestamp was two minutes ago.
"She’s moving fast." Evelyn minimized the window. "You think she’ll call someone?"
Dario’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. "Everyone calls someone."
Down the hall, the elevator dinged. Evelyn tensed, but it was just the intern, balancing a tray of coffees. The kid nodded at them, oblivious, and turned toward the bullpen.
Dario waited until the footsteps faded. "You’ll follow her. Discreetly."
"And if she spots me?"
"Then we’ll know she’s better than we thought." He adjusted his cufflink, the movement precise. "Either way, she leads us to the leak."
Evelyn’s desk phone rang—internal line. She let it go to voicemail. Outside, the sky darkened, clouds rolling in low and heavy. The weather app on her phone flashed a thunderstorm warning.
Lisa’s last known location popped up on the tracker: a café three blocks east. Too close to the federal building for comfort.
Dario was already walking away, his voice trailing behind him. "Don’t lose her."
The door clicked shut. Evelyn grabbed her jacket, the lining cold against her wrists. As she passed the printer, the jammed page finally dislodged, sliding into the tray with a whisper. It was blank except for a single smudged line—the ghost of something that hadn’t printed right.
She crumpled it into her pocket and headed for the stairs. The air smelled like ozone. Somewhere below, a car door slammed.
The alley reeked of piss and rotting takeout, but Maya Torres didn't flinch.
She kept her back to the graffiti-scarred wall, tracking Lisa's movements through the reflection in a shattered storefront window.
Lisa clutched a black duffel to her chest, glancing over her shoulder every three steps like clockwork. Amateur.
Maya counted the seconds between Lisa's nervous checks—always three, never four—as she followed at a distance.
The dead drop location was supposed to be a busted fire hydrant two blocks east, but Lisa veered left into the loading dock behind an abandoned textile factory. Changed the plan. Smart girl.
A rusted metal grate screeched when Lisa pulled it open.
Maya waited until the sound faded before slipping forward.
The grate led to a narrow service tunnel, the concrete slick with something that wasn't water.
She pressed a gloved hand against the wall to steady herself, fingertips brushing over shallow grooves in the concrete.
Not tool marks. Claw marks. Too evenly spaced for rats.
Voices echoed ahead. Lisa's nervous staccato, then a lower tone—Daniel Marsh's bored drawl. "You're late."
"I took the scenic route." Lisa's bag thumped onto concrete. "Where's Dario?"
"He doesn't do handoffs. You know that."
Maya edged closer. The tunnel opened into a dimly lit storage room, shelves lined with mildewed ledgers. Daniel leaned against a rusted filing cabinet, arms crossed. His sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, showing fresh scratches along his forearms. The same spacing as the marks on the wall.
Lisa shoved the duffel at him. "It's all there. Tell Vitale—"
"I don't carry messages either." Daniel unzipped the bag just enough to see the stacks inside, then tossed it onto the cabinet. "You got what you came for. Now walk away."
Lisa hesitated. "I need assurances."
Daniel laughed, low and humorless. "You're breathing. That's your assurance."
Lisa backed toward the tunnel, hands raised. Maya ducked behind a support beam as she passed, close enough to catch the sharp tang of fear-sweat clinging to her. The grate screeched again, then silence.
Daniel waited a full minute before sighing. "You can come out now, Torres."
Maya stepped into the light. "How long have you known?"
"Since you tailed her past the bodega." He didn't move from the cabinet, but his fingers tapped an uneven rhythm against the metal. "Dario wants to know why you're following his couriers."
"Because Evelyn Crane paid her rent three months in advance last week." Maya kicked the duffel. It didn't budge. "With bills that still had Fort Dix ink on them."
Daniel's tapping stopped. "That's federal."
"Yeah." Maya pulled her glove tighter over a knuckle. "So either Lisa's smuggling prison cash for fun, or your boss is laundering more than gambling profits these days."
A new voice cut through the damp air. "It's a retirement fund."
Dario Vitale stepped from the shadows near the far shelf, brushing dust from his sleeve. He held a ledger with pages that rustled like dry leaves. "Federal ink washes out if you know which solvents to use." His smile didn't reach his eyes. "But I appreciate the concern."
Maya didn't blink. "Tell that to the IRS."
Dario tossed the ledger onto a shelf. It landed with a thump that sent a cockroach skittering across the floor. "Tell me something first." He stepped closer, the scent of bergamot cutting through the mildew. "Why is Evelyn Crane watching my money?"
Maya's phone buzzed in her pocket. Once. A signal. She kept her hand away from it. "You'd have to ask her."
Dario's gaze dropped to her jacket pocket. "I will."
The new detail: fresh claw marks on Daniel's forearms match the grooves in the tunnel walls.
Dario turned his head toward the far end of the tunnel, where the dim emergency lighting flickered over a hunched figure.
Daniel Marsh crouched near the wall, fingers tracing fresh claw marks gouged into the concrete.
His sleeves were pushed up past his elbows, revealing matching gashes on his forearms—deep, ragged, still glistening.
Evelyn exhaled sharply beside him. "That's new."