Chapter 5: The Name She Was Never Supposed to Say
Marcus Vane took thirty-six hours to find.
Declan did not sleep during those thirty-six hours.
He sat in the study on the ground floor with the transfer document on the desk in front of him and worked through everything he thought he knew, piece by piece, the way a man dismantles a weapon to find the fault in the mechanism.
The bombing.
Two years ago.
A Tuesday morning in October.
He had taken the Range Rover that day because the Mercedes had a slow tire he had meant to have checked.
A last-minute decision.
Camille had taken the Mercedes because she had a lunch appointment in Bellevue she had mentioned the night before.
He had always believed the C4 was meant for him.
He had never questioned it.
He questioned it now.
Ronan called at 6:14 a.m.
on the second morning.
"He's in Tacoma," Ronan said.
"Industrial district near the port.
A warehouse registered to a logistics company that doesn't appear to move any actual freight." A pause.
"He's not hiding, Declan.
He has four men with him and a clean perimeter.
He's been operating."
"Does he know I'm looking?"
"Not yet."
"Keep it that way." Declan folded the transfer document and put it in his inside pocket.
"I'm going alone."
"That's not—"
"Alone, Ronan."
He drove to Tacoma in the dark.
The warehouse was exactly as Ronan described.
A gray concrete building set back from the road, a chain-link perimeter, two men at the entrance who clocked the Mercedes from fifty yards out.
Declan parked in the open, in full view, and walked toward them with his hands visible.
They knew who he was.
That was clear from the way the taller one reached for his radio instead of his weapon.
"Tell Marcus I'm here," Declan said.
"Tell him I found the transfer document."
He waited four minutes in the cold.
Then the door opened.
Marcus Vane was 52, lean, with the kind of stillness that came from years of surviving rooms where the wrong word ended careers and sometimes lives.
He stood in the doorway and looked at Declan for a long moment before stepping back to let him in.
The interior was sparse.
A table.
Chairs.
A space heater in the corner doing almost nothing against the cold.
"You look terrible," Marcus said.
"Tell me about the car," Declan said.
Marcus sat down.
He did not offer Declan a seat.
"Which part."
"All of it."
"Camille came to me eight weeks before the b*mbing." Marcus laced his fingers on the table.
"She said she needed out.
She said you'd never let her go.
She said she had tried twice to leave and both times you'd found her and brought her back."
Declan said nothing.
"She asked me to make it look like an attempt on your life.
She'd take the car.
She'd survive — she was very specific about that, she had a doctor lined up, she'd planned the medical side of it herself.
She'd spend a year in recovery, build the vegetative-state cover, and then disappear with the assets she'd been quietly moving for the previous fourteen months."
The space heater ticked.
"I told her no," Marcus said.
"I want you to know that.
I told her no three times." He looked at Declan steadily.
"She came back a fourth time with documentation.
Evidence of three operations I'd run through your port access without your knowledge.
She said if I didn't help her, she'd hand it to the federal task force that had been building a case on my crew for two years." He paused.
"She didn't ask me to help her.
She told me I was going to."
Declan's voice was very quiet.
"She bl*ckmailed you."
"She bl*ckmailed me." Marcus tilted his head.
"I've been waiting two years for you to figure it out.
I lost three men because of what you did to my crew.
Good men." His jaw moved.
"I didn't wire your car, Declan.
She told me exactly what to wire and how, and she told me which car to use, and she told me what time she would take it.
I followed instructions from your wife."
Declan put the transfer document on the table.
Marcus looked at it.
"She forged your signature to move the assets.
I didn't know about that part until six months ago when one of my people flagged the shell company." He looked up.
"She's been planning to disappear for a long time.
The USB drive has account numbers.
Eight figures.
All of it moved from your accounts over fourteen months using your credentials."
Declan stared at the document.
"She's going to the dock tonight," Marcus said.
"There's a boat.
Private charter.
She booked it under the shell company name.
If she makes international water, you won't find her."
Declan picked up the document and stood.
"Why are you telling me this," he said.
Marcus looked at him without expression.
May you like
"Because I lost three men.
And I want you to know exactly who is responsible for that."
