Chapter 7: The Driver Speaks
Curtis Beal was found at a motel off I-90 near Rosemont at 1:17 a.m.
He had checked in under a different name.
He had paid cash.
He had a bag packed with four days of clothes and a prepaid phone with three numbers saved in it, none of which were his wife or his employer.
He had been waiting.
Fosse's man brought him to the estate in a car with tinted windows, and Beal sat in the back seat the entire drive with his hands on his knees and said nothing.
He was forty-four years old.
He had a broad, weathered face and the kind of stillness that came not from calm but from a decision already made about how much to reveal.
Dominic met him in the study alone.
No Vincent.
No Fosse.
Just the two of them and a desk between them and the rain still pressing against the window.
Beal looked around the room.
He looked at Dominic's cane.
He looked at the desk.
"You know why you're here," Dominic said.
"I have a guess."
"Tell me."
Beal exhaled through his nose.
"Lower Wacker.
November."
"Yes."
"I didn't know who was in the car." He said it immediately, like he'd been rehearsing it.
"They told me it was a demonstration.
That nobody would be seriously hurt.
That the impact would be controlled."
"Who told you?"
Beal looked at the desk.
"Curtis."
"A man named Harlow.
I don't know his first name.
He came to my employer's office in September.
He said the company had been selected for a new logistics contract — a big one, real money — and that there was one condition attached."
"One condition."
"He said there was a vehicle.
A specific vehicle.
He gave me the make, the model, the plate.
He said when I saw it on Lower Wacker on a specific date, I needed to make contact.
Rear quarter panel.
Low speed.
Make it look like a brake failure."
"And you agreed."
Beal's jaw tightened.
"The contract was worth four times our annual revenue.
My employer — he didn't ask questions.
He told me to handle it."
"Your employer knew."
"He knew there was a condition.
He didn't know what it was." Beal looked up.
"I'm the one who knew."
"And afterward?"
"The contract came through.
Harlow called once to confirm the job was done.
That was the last I heard until three days ago."
"What happened three days ago?"
"Harlow called again.
He said the situation had become complicated and that I should be prepared to relocate temporarily.
He said if anyone came asking, I had been in a standard traffic incident and the brake failure was mechanical and I had no further information."
"He told you to disappear."
"He told me to be careful."
"Same thing." Dominic leaned forward.
"Harlow.
Describe him."
"Fifties.
Well-dressed.
Spoke like a lawyer or a banker.
Very precise." Beal paused.
"He had an accent.
Not strong.
Midwest, mostly, but something underneath it.
East Coast, maybe."
"Did he ever mention a name?
Any name — a person, a company, an organization?"
Beal thought.
"Once.
On the first call.
He said the arrangement had been authorized at the highest level and that I should consider myself protected." He paused.
"He said — he said 'Mr.
Voss appreciates discretion.'"
The room was very quiet.
"He used that name," Dominic said.
"Yes."
"You're certain."
"I've thought about it every day since November." Beal looked at him steadily.
"I'm certain."
Dominic sat back.
Beal watched him.
"What happens now?"
"Now you write down everything you just told me.
Harlow's description.
The dates.
The calls.
The contract.
The name."
"And then?"
"And then you have a choice." Dominic studied him.
"You can cooperate fully — give a formal statement, make yourself available to investigators, testify if it comes to that.
In exchange, I will make clear to the relevant authorities that you were recruited under financial pressure and that you came forward voluntarily."
"Or?"
"Or you leave this building tonight and take your chances with whatever Harlow has planned for the people who can connect him to this."
Beal was quiet for a long moment.
"You think he's cleaning up," Beal said.
"I think the vote was supposed to happen tonight.
It didn't.
That means Arthur's plan is exposed and everyone connected to it is now a liability." Dominic paused.
"You checked into that motel under a false name.
You already know what that means."
Beal looked at his hands.
"Give me the pad," he said.
Vincent appeared in the doorway as Beal began to write.
He held up his phone.
On the screen was a message from Fosse: *Whitfield's billing records.
Fourteen patients in fourteen months.
Eleven of them share one referral source.
AV.*
Arthur Voss had been sending patients to Whitfield for over a year.
Building a relationship.
Establishing trust.
Making Whitfield's practice dependent on Arthur's referrals before the moment came when Arthur needed a medical opinion that would hold up to scrutiny.
Dominic looked at the message.
Then he looked through the study window toward the conference room.
Arthur was still at the table.
But Colton's chair was empty.
"Where's Colton?" Dominic said.
Vincent checked his phone.
Then his face changed.
"He's in the rehabilitation wing," Vincent said.
"One of the guards just flagged him.
He went in two minutes ago."
"What's in the rehabilitation wing at two in the morning?"
"Mercer's office," Vincent said.
May you like
"And the brace."
Dominic was already moving.
