Chapter 7: The Third Name
Ferrara answered on the first ring.
"Talk," Gabriel said.
He had stepped into the corridor, pulling the study door mostly closed behind him.
Through the gap he could see Elena still standing near the window, Thomas still in the doorway, neither of them speaking.
Camille had moved to the far chair and was sitting with her hands pressed flat on her knees.
"The transfers your father-in-law — excuse me, your former fiancée's father — was running through the import accounts," Ferrara said.
"I've been tracking them for six weeks.
I thought it was two parties.
Whitaker's holding company and Brooks's personal accounts.
Tonight I found a third routing path.
Someone set up a mirror account — same account structure, slightly different routing numbers — and has been skimming from both Whitaker and Brooks without either of them knowing."
Gabriel was very still.
"How much?"
"Over the last six weeks?
A little under four hundred thousand.
But the structure suggests they were planning to scale.
The mirror account was built for volume."
"Name on the account?"
"That's the part that took me until tonight." Ferrara paused.
"The account is registered to a company called Whitmore Consulting Group.
Incorporated in Delaware eighteen months ago.
Single director." Another pause.
"The director's name is listed as C.
Whitmore."
Gabriel turned and looked through the gap in the study door.
Camille was still sitting with her hands on her knees.
She had not moved.
"C.
Whitmore," Gabriel said.
"I know," Ferrara said.
"It could be coincidence.
It's not a common name but it's not impossible.
I'd want to see a signature comparison before—"
"It's not a coincidence," Gabriel said.
"Send me everything.
Tonight."
He ended the call.
He stood in the corridor for a moment with the phone in his hand.
Down the hall, the kitchen was quiet.
The dining room beyond it was dark.
The guests were long gone, the table still set with the abandoned dinner, the ring still sitting where he had placed it near the head of the table.
He went back into the study.
Camille looked up when he entered.
She read his face the way people who are very good at reading faces do — quickly, accurately, and with a particular kind of dread that comes from already knowing what they are about to be told.
"Whitmore Consulting Group," Gabriel said.
The color left her face completely.
"Gabriel—"
"C.
Whitmore.
Incorporated in Delaware.
Eighteen months ago." He set his phone on the desk so she could see the message from Ferrara.
"You've been skimming from your own father."
The room was absolutely still.
Thomas Brooks looked at Camille.
Elena looked at Gabriel.
"It's not what it looks like," Camille said.
"Then tell me what it looks like from where you're standing," Gabriel said, "because from where I'm standing, you handed me a USB drive full of your father's financial records tonight, and I am now wondering whether you did that to protect me or to protect yourself."
Camille stood up.
Her hands were shaking — the first time Gabriel had seen her hands shake.
"Both," she said.
"It was both.
I'm not going to lie to you about that."
"Start from the beginning," Gabriel said.
"The real beginning."
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then she sat back down.
"My father has been stealing from me since I was nineteen," she said.
"Trust fund.
My grandmother's estate.
Investment accounts my grandfather set up in my name.
He moved money out of them for years before I understood what was happening.
By the time I did, he had lawyers and structures and paper trails that made it look legitimate." Her voice was flat and precise.
"When he came to me eight months ago with the plan involving you and Elena's father, I agreed because I had no choice.
He had leverage over me — documentation that could make it look like I had authorized the transfers from my own accounts.
He could have buried me."
"So you built a mirror account," Gabriel said.
"I started taking back what he took from me," Camille said.
"Yes.
I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like fraud," Gabriel said.
"It is fraud," Camille said.
"I know that too."
Elena spoke from the window.
"You used my father's accounts to do it."
Camille looked at her.
"Yes.
I'm sorry.
That was wrong."
"Sorry," Elena said, very quietly.
"I know that's not enough."
"No," Elena said.
"It isn't."
Gabriel picked up the USB drive from the desk.
He turned it once in his hand.
"This drive," he said.
"Does it have your accounts on it as well?
The Whitmore accounts?"
A pause.
"Yes," Camille said.
"You included yourself."
"Yes."
Gabriel set the drive back down.
He looked at Camille for a long time — long enough that she stopped trying to read his expression and simply waited.
"My lawyer's name is Donatella Ricci," he said finally.
"She will contact you tomorrow morning.
You will give her full cooperation.
Every account, every transfer, every document.
You will not move or delete anything tonight."
"And my father?" Camille asked.
"Richard Whitaker," Gabriel said, "is going to have a very difficult week."
Camille nodded once.
She stood, picked up her clutch, and walked to the door.
She stopped with her hand on the frame.
"For what it's worth," she said, without turning around, "the part that was real — that was real."
She left.
Her heels crossed the marble corridor, faded toward the entrance hall, and were gone.
Gabriel looked at the USB drive on his desk.
Thomas Brooks cleared his throat softly.
"What happens now?"
"Now," Gabriel said, "I make a phone call."
He reached for his phone.
Outside the study window, headlights swept across the gravel drive as Camille's car pulled away into the dark.
And on the desk, beside the USB drive, Gabriel's phone lit up with an incoming call from a number he did not recognize — a number with a Newport area code.
May you like
He looked at it for one second.
Then he answered.
