Chapter 6 - ANNA’S SECOND SET OF BOOKS
Vincent left the hospital against medical advice at 9:40 the next morning.
Lana knew because Dr. Reed called her.
Not Frank.
Not security.
Her.
“Why are you calling me?”
“Because he listens to you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
A pause.
“More than anyone else.”
“That is a low bar.”
Dr. Reed sighed.
“He needs rest.”
“Tell him.”
“I did.”
“Then why is this my problem?”
“Because he signed himself out.”
Lana closed her eyes.
“Of course he did.”
Twenty minutes later, Vincent walked into the accounting annex looking pale and irritated.
She did not greet him.
She pointed at the chair.
“No.”
“Sit.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“Your doctor called.”
“Traitor.”
“Sit.”
He stared.
Then sat.
Lana hated how satisfying that was.
“Show me.”
His expression changed.
She turned the monitor.
The audio file.
Anna’s voice.
She will be.
Vincent listened.
Once.
Then again.
His face changed in a way Lana had never seen.
Grief did not always look like tears.
Sometimes it looked like a person becoming very still so nothing inside escaped.
“Why would Anna know you?”
Lana asked.
“I don't know.”
“Did she know my mother?”
“Name?”
“Eileen Carter.”
Vincent thought.
“No.”
“My father?”
“Richard?”
“No.”
“Credit union?”
He looked at the screen.
“Anna managed the charitable foundation’s banking relationships.”
Lana’s pulse jumped.
“With my credit union?”
“Possibly.”
She searched.
Gallow Foundation held accounts at three regional banks.
One was Lana’s former credit union.
Same branch.
The relationship predated her employment.
Anna had visited twice.
Three years ago.
Lana had been a teller then.
She remembered an elegant woman with dark hair asking strange questions about internal controls.
Not Anna’s name.
But the face—
Lana opened an old foundation photo.
Her breath caught.
“I met her.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“She came into the branch.”
“When?”
“Before I moved into accounting.”
“What did she say?”
Lana searched memory.
Anna had sat across from the branch manager.
The same manager Lana later discovered skimming money.
Mr. Keller.
She remembered carrying coffee into the office.
Anna looking at her name tag.
Lana.
Then asking:
Do you like numbers?
Lana had laughed.
Said numbers behaved better than people.
Anna smiled.
“God.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“What?”
“I told her that.”
“What?”
“That numbers behaved better than people.”
Lana looked at the audio timeline.
Three years.
“Maybe she remembered me.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Why choose you?”
“Maybe she didn't.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe ‘Lana Carter’ was a location, not a person.”
He frowned.
Lana searched foundation transfers to the credit union around the week of Anna’s death.
One transfer.
$100.
Memo:
LANA CARTER SCHOLARSHIP HOLD.
Lana stared.
“I never got a scholarship.”
Vincent looked closer.
The funds had been reversed the next day.
But the transaction created an internal record under Lana’s name.
A place to attach documents.
Same trick Arthur later used with the one-dollar transfer.
Anna had learned the credit union system.
She had hidden something there.
“Call Dana.”
This time Vincent said it.
Lana smiled.
“Criminal optimism.”
“Efficient.”
Dana answered on the third ring.
She had clearly decided Lana was either involved in federal crime or a cult.
Possibly both.
The old transaction still existed in deep archive.
Attachment inaccessible.
But Dana could read filename metadata.
AG_SECOND_BOOK.zip.
Lana’s pulse jumped.
“Can you export it?”
“No.”
“Can compliance?”
“Yes.”
“Who runs compliance now?”
“Keller.”
Of course.
The branch manager Lana had once covered for.
The man who skimmed small amounts.
Arthur’s background report said Lana had compensated for his theft.
What if the theft had not been random?
“What is Keller’s first name?”
Vincent asked.
“Martin.”
He searched Arthur’s ledger.
M.K.
Page nineteen.
BANK ACCESS.
PLACED VIA PRIVATE DEBT.
ACTIVE.
Lana’s stomach dropped.
Keller was another recruit.
Sebastian’s network.
He had been placed at the credit union.
Anna discovered something.
Used Lana’s employee identity to hide a file because Keller would not associate a junior teller with Gallow evidence.
Then Arthur later found the clue.
“Why not send it directly to you?”
Lana asked.
Vincent looked at Anna’s photo.
“Because she did not trust my systems.”
“Or you.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt him.
He accepted it.
Lana appreciated that too.
They could not ask Keller for the file.
So Lana did something she had never imagined doing.
She requested a formal regulatory copy as the named subject of the transaction.
Perfectly legal.
Painfully slow.
Unless a lawyer threatened.
Vincent had several.
By noon, the credit union’s general counsel produced the archive.
Encrypted zip.
Password hint:
BEHAVIOR.
Lana laughed.
“Numbers behave better than people.”
She typed:
NUMBERSBEHAVEBETTER.
Wrong.
Vincent said, “Try the rest.”
She entered:
NUMBERSBEHAVEBETTERTHANPEOPLE.
Unlocked.
Inside were fourteen PDF scans and one spreadsheet.
Anna’s second set of books.
Not Gallow accounts.
Sebastian’s.
Private companies.
Recruitment payments.
Clinic bills.
Gambling credit.
Debt purchases.
Medical vendors.
And a tab labeled VINCENT.
Lana opened it.
Three years of planning.
At first, nothing medical.
Travel.
Security schedules.
Food preferences.
Physical therapy after his leg injury.
Then supplements.
Specific brands.
Specific lot numbers.
Sebastian had started switching Vincent’s magnesium capsules four months earlier.
Exactly when Arthur noticed.
The goal column said:
REDUCE FUNCTION.
INCREASE FATIGUE.
CREATE VISIBLE INSTABILITY.
NO FATAL EVENT PRIOR TO TRANSFER.
Lana felt sick.
“This is a corporate poisoning plan.”
Vincent stared.
“Apparently.”
“Stop saying apparently when your uncle made a spreadsheet about weakening you.”
He almost smiled.
Then another row.
TRANSFER TARGET: MARCH 14.
“What is March 14?”
Lana asked.
Vincent went pale.
“Family council.”
“How far away?”
“Six days.”
So close.
Sebastian planned to trigger the incapacity vote in six days.
Then Lana saw another tab.
ANNA.
Vincent’s hand tightened on the desk.
“You don't have to open it.”
Lana looked at him.
“Neither do you.”
He sat quietly.
Then said, “Open it.”
Records.
Private investigator invoices.
Brake-service contractor.
A payment routed through Sebastian’s foundation.
No explicit murder order.
Enough pattern.
Then one audio transcript Anna had written herself.
S.G. SAID: IF VINCENT WON'T STEP ASIDE, I WILL CREATE A REASON.
Vincent closed his eyes.
Lana did not touch him.
Minutes passed.
Then he spoke.
“She was going to leave me.”
Lana looked at him.
“What?”
“Anna.”
He stared at the screen.
“The week she died.”
“Why?”
“Because I kept telling her Sebastian was family.”
Lana’s chest tightened.
“She found evidence.”
“I called it suspicion.”
“You didn't believe her.”
“No.”
His voice broke slightly.
“One of our last arguments was about him.”
Lana looked down.
There was no right thing to say.
So she said nothing.
Vincent continued.
“She told me loyalty without evidence was just fear dressed well.”
“That sounds smart.”
“She was.”
“Did you love her?”
He looked at Lana.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Good.
She would have distrusted anything else.
“And she was still going to leave.”
“Yes.”
“Both can be true.”
He stared.
Then nodded.
“Yes.”
Lana thought of Richard.
Love did not obligate staying.
Blood did not obligate rescue.
Care did not erase harm.
Maybe everyone in this house was learning the same lesson from different graves.
Frank entered.
“We found Keller.”
Lana turned.
“Where?”
“Airport.”
“Leaving?”
“Trying.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Bring him.”
Lana raised one hand.
“Police.”
Vincent looked at her.
“Keller is part of Sebastian’s network.”
“So?”
“He knows operational details.”
“Then get an attorney and federal investigators.”
“Federal?”
“Yes.”
Vincent’s eyebrows rose.
“You want me to invite federal investigators into my books.”
“I want you to stop solving every crime with private rooms.”
Frank coughed.
Vincent stared.
She stared back.
Finally:
“Limited disclosure.”
“Real investigators.”
“Yes.”
“Not paid ones.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
Progress.
Keller was detained through financial-fraud evidence before he boarded.
Within hours, an outside federal investigator agreed to review Anna’s banking archive under counsel.
The first crack in Sebastian’s network became official.
At dusk, Lana stood on the terrace.
Cold air.
Valley darkening.
Vincent came out with two coats.
He offered one.
She took it.
No performance.
“Six days.”
she said.
“Yes.”
“Sebastian will know something changed.”
“He already does.”
“What will he do?”
“Accelerate.”
Lana looked at him.
“You should disappear.”
His mouth twitched.
“No.”
“Safe house.”
“No.”
“Hospital.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Stubborn.”
“Yes.”
She leaned against the stone railing.
“What happens at the council if you show up weak?”
“They can invoke medical transfer.”
“What if you show them the poisoning evidence?”
“Sebastian will say it is fabricated.”
“Anna’s files?”
“Better.”
“Federal investigation?”
“Better still.”
“So we need six days.”
“Yes.”
“And he needs you to deteriorate before then.”
Vincent looked toward the dark trees.
“Yes.”
A car engine sounded below.
Security lights activated.
Frank appeared at the terrace door.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Someone at the gate.”
“Sebastian?”
“No.”
Frank looked at Lana.
“Woman says she knew Anna.”
Vincent stiffened.
“Name?”
“Claire Vitiello.”
Lana’s stomach dropped.
“Carmine’s wife?”
Frank nodded.
“She says Carmine did not steal the payroll money.”
Silence.
“And she has proof Arthur Venn was murdered.”
Lana looked at Vincent.
Another person had arrived carrying something the dead had hidden from the living.
The pattern no longer felt accidental. Arthur had scattered truth outside the estate because he understood the house itself had become part of Sebastian’s system.
Vincent reached for the door.
Lana said, “Evidence first.”
He looked back.
“Basement never?”
“Exactly.”
His mouth twitched.
“Your compliance manual is becoming hostile.”
“You should have had one before buying accountants.”
May you like
For the first time that day, he laughed without pain.
Then they went to meet the woman carrying Arthur Venn’s last secret.
