Chapter 12
The dressing suite smelled like hairspray and cold coffee. The foundation's gala was still going two floors down, bass thumping through the floorboards, but up here the lights were too bright and the handler had locked the door from the inside.
He slid the paper across the vanity toward me. One page, foundation letterhead, a signature line at the bottom. A release, he called it. Acknowledging I'd found the ledger on my own and had no claim against them.
"You sign this, you walk out," he said. His voice was even, practiced. "No one needs to make this bigger than it is."
The ledger itself sat on the counter beside his hand, taped shut. My phone was in my left palm, screen dark, recording light hidden against my thigh. Dante stood by the door, his back to it, his black jacket making him a shadow against the white wall.
I didn't touch the pen.
"No," I said.
The handler smiled a little. "Elena, be smart."
"I said no," I said again, louder this time. My hand was shaking but my voice wasn't. "I'm not signing anything until you say on record what you want it for. What you had Dante bring me in for. Say it plain."
His smile thinned. "You don't have leverage here."
"I do," I said. I lifted my phone just enough to show the red dot. "The copy isn't here. It's not in this building. If I don't check in by midnight, it goes to the county sheriff and to a reporter in Des Moines. So you can take this paper and shred it, or you can tell me why you needed that ledger badly enough to send someone through my door at night."
For a second nobody moved. Downstairs, someone laughed too loud and glasses clinked.
The handler took a step toward me. "You think a county sheriff scares me?"
"The sheriff is already in your lobby," I said.
His head snapped toward Dante. "You called someone?"
Dante didn't answer him. He looked at me instead, and something in his face shifted.
"I did," I said. "Before we came up here. I called Sheriff Nolan. I told him where we'd be and what to ask for at the desk. So you have about three minutes before he comes up that elevator."
The handler stared at me, then at Dante. He reached for the ledger on the counter, fast, like he could still salvage it. Dante moved faster.
Dante stepped in front of the vanity and planted his shoulder against the door. He didn't touch the handler, just blocked him with his whole body. The brass handle rattled when the handler tried it anyway and found Dante's weight holding it shut.
"You're not leaving with it," Dante said. His voice was low and controlled, the same tone he'd used that first night in my apartment.
"Move," the handler said. "You work for me. You brought her here."
"I brought her through a door with a busted switch," Dante said. He looked at me while he said it. "That's how they did your apartment, Elena. The light switch. I loosened the plate that night so it would stick. So you'd think the power flickered when they turned the knob. It wasn't random. It was the entry pattern. Every place they sent me, same trick. Door, switch, dark. Makes people freeze."
My stomach dropped. That small detail, the wall switch I reached for while his hand was on my shoulder, suddenly made sense. It wasn't a struggle over light. It was choreography.
The handler's face went tight. "You're admitting breaking and entering to a recording? Genius."
"I'm admitting you told me to do it," Dante said. He didn't move from the door. "And that you told me to make sure she didn't call anyone that first night. And that you said the ledger was just donor records."
I kept the phone steady. The recording app showed 04:12 and climbing. I needed him to say more.
"Say who 'they' are," I said to the handler. "Say what you wanted from me specifically. My name was flagged because of my old casework at the county clerk's office, wasn't it? Because I logged that parcel transfer."
The handler glanced at the door, then at my phone. Sweat had started at his temple despite the cold air conditioning. He tried to recover, smoothing his suit jacket.
"This is a misunderstanding about foundation property," he said, careful now, each word chosen. "No one wants anything from you personally, Miss Reyes. The ledger belongs to us."
"Then why send him at night?" I said. "Why not subpoena it?"
He didn't answer. A knock hit the suite door, hard and official. Two knocks.
From the corridor outside, muffled through the wood, a man's voice: "Sheriff's department. Open the door please."
The handler froze with his hand halfway to the ledger. Dante stayed braced against the door but turned his head toward the sound.
"Elena?" the voice called. "You in there? Front desk sent me up. You called about a documents dispute?"
I met Dante's eyes. He gave me a short nod.
"We're in here," I called back, my throat dry. "Suite 3B. Door's locked from inside."
The handle jiggled from the outside. The handler looked at me, calculating, then stepped back from the vanity and raised his hands a few inches, palms out, like this was all administrative.
"I have no problem speaking with law enforcement," he said quickly. "We have a simple contract issue here. Miss Reyes is confused."
Dante didn't open the door yet. He looked at me again, waiting for my cue. The red dot on my phone was still blinking.
"Don't sign anything. Don't touch that ledger until he hears you say why you're really here," Dante said under his breath, just to me.
I pressed the phone tighter into my palm. "Sheriff, give us one minute, we're securing the documents," I shouted.
Outside, the sheriff said, "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."
May you like
The handler stood cornered between the vanity and the wall, the unsigned paper still on the counter, the ledger between us and him. He wasn't arrested, not yet, but he wasn't leaving either.
The recording kept running.
