Part 16
Derek set the plates down on the table, the food completely forgotten.
"What do you mean, something we missed?" he asked.
I walked back into the study and brought out the blue folder.
I dumped the contents onto the dining table.
The original bank statements. The true lease. The court documents.
"Think about it, Derek," I said, my hands shifting through the papers.
"Felicia was smart, but she wasn't a criminal mastermind."
"She was a hostess at a high-end restaurant when you met her."
"How did she know how to set up an offshore account in Switzerland?"
"How did she know how to route a digital signature through a European VPN?"
"Thomas Vance did that," Derek pointed out.
"Yes, Thomas did the technical work," I replied. "But who introduced Thomas to Felicia?"
"Richard Vance said he directed Thomas to you."
"But Richard's wife just told me Richard was desperate because he owed money to dangerous people."
"A billionaire developer doesn't take orders from a restaurant hostess."
"Someone else brought them all together."
I began looking at the very first bank statement Derek had given me—the one showing the sixty thousand dollar transfer.
I turned it over.
On the back of the last page, there was a tiny, printed routing code from the receiving bank.
It wasn't for Caldwell Property Holdings.
It was a secondary routing number for an intermediary bank in New York.
"Derek, when you did the wire transfer at your bank, who was the specific teller who handled the transaction?"
He frowned, trying to recall.
"It was... a woman named Evelyn."
"Evelyn Vance?" I asked, my breath catching.
"No," Derek said. "Evelyn Brooks."
The room became completely still.
Brooks.
The same last name as Cassandra Brooks, Felicia's sister.
"Cassandra's daughter," I whispered.
"Or her sister's cousin," Derek added, his eyes widening.
"She works at the main branch downtown."
"She's the one who approved the transfer without checking the secondary flags."
"She didn't just approve it, Derek," I said, my heart pounding.
"She routed it."
I picked up the paper and pointed to the small signature line at the bottom of the wire confirmation.
"Look at the processing initials."
E.B.
"Evelyn Brooks wasn't just a teller."
"She was the insider at the bank who allowed the fraud to go through without triggering the automated security systems."
"And if Richard Vance's safe was robbed today..."
"...it means the person who organized this is erasing any document that connects Evelyn to the Caldwell sisters."
I grabbed my coat from the rack.
"Where are we going?" Derek asked, already reaching for his boots.
May you like
"To the main branch downtown," I said.
"We need to get to Evelyn Brooks before whoever broke into Richard's safe gets to her first."
