Chapter 3 - THE MISSING DRAWING
Harper watched the security image until Trent’s face stopped looking like a person she had once loved and became evidence.
That was easier.
“What happened after this?”
Dominic swiped to the next frame.
“Your archive camera went offline for eleven minutes.”
“And when it came back?”
“Trent was gone.”
“With my father’s survey.”
“Yes.”
Harper looked at him.
“You’ve had this image for six months?”
“No. Hotel security obtained it today from your building’s archived access system.”
“Why was Grand Hotel security searching my firm?”
“Because my internal audit traced the March approval to a Vale & Mercer workstation.”
“That still doesn’t authorize you to investigate our offices.”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Harper’s anger checked itself.
Dominic continued.
“I requested access records through the project’s fraud-review clause. Your managing partner approved the request this morning.”
“Malcolm?”
“Yes.”
That was worse.
Malcolm had authorized the review while knowing his own access card might appear.
Either he was extraordinarily confident—
or Trent having the card had an innocent explanation.
Harper disliked both possibilities.
“I’m going to the office.”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“My father’s survey is missing and someone used my credentials to approve structural substitutions.”
Dominic took his coat from a chair.
“I’ll drive.”
“I have a car.”
“You drank champagne.”
“One glass.”
“And kissed me.”
Harper stared.
“What does that have to do with driving?”
“Nothing.”
His mouth nearly moved.
“I wanted to mention it.”
Despite herself, she laughed.
Then remembered they were investigating possible fraud.
“That was shameless.”
“I’m told.”
Vale & Mercer occupied four floors of a renovated warehouse in Tribeca.
Harper had spent more nights there than she had in her own apartment.
The security guard looked surprised when she arrived with Dominic Russo at 12:21 in the morning.
He looked significantly more surprised when Dominic stayed by the elevators while Harper entered the archive alone.
She noticed.
“You’re not coming?”
“You said it was your firm.”
That small act earned more trust than forcing his way inside ever could.
“Come on.”
The project archive smelled like paper, graphite, and dust.
Harper unlocked the West Wing cabinets.
The empty slot where her father’s tube had been remained painfully obvious.
She searched anyway.
Nothing.
Then Dominic looked toward a large architectural model under acrylic.
The Grand Hotel.
Original tower.
Ballroom.
West Wing.
“What?”
Harper followed his gaze.
“Your father built that?”
“Yes. The preliminary massing model.”
“How can you tell?”
“The landscaping is terrible.”
Dominic looked at her.
“My father hated model trees. Said they looked like broccoli.”
A memory tugged unexpectedly at her chest.
Jonathan Vale standing at the kitchen table with glue on his fingers.
Harper at sixteen, cutting tiny cardboard benches while he complained about miniature shrubbery.
She moved closer.
One corner of the model’s base sat slightly higher than the others.
“That’s wrong.”
Dominic came beside her.
“What?”
“My father would have thrown the whole thing away before leaving a base uneven.”
She lifted the acrylic cover.
The brass title plate on the model read:
GRAND HOTEL WEST WING — CONCEPT STUDY.
Jonathan had engraved a tiny V beneath the final letter.
Harper smiled despite herself.
“He used to mark anything he altered himself.”
“With a V?”
“For Vale.”
She pressed the plate.
Nothing.
Dominic did not touch it.
Instead he pointed.
“The screw on the left is newer.”
Harper removed it with a drafting tool from the cabinet.
The brass plate loosened.
Behind it lay a folded sheet of yellow tracing paper.
Her father’s handwriting covered one side.
Harper’s throat tightened.
She unfolded it carefully.
Existing east transfer foundation unsuitable for additional vertical loading without reinforced grade specified in Survey 14B. Never approve substitute steel.
Below it:
M. knows the river test failed.
Dominic read over her shoulder.
“M.”
“Malcolm.”
“Could be.”
Harper looked at him.
“You sound irritatingly reasonable.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t praise.”
“I’ll survive.”
There was a second note.
If Bennett enters procurement, recheck ownership.
Harper’s pulse jumped.
“Bennett.”
“Chloe’s family?”
“Yes.”
But the handwriting was seventeen years old.
Long before Chloe married Trent.
Long before Harper even met him.
“What would my father know about Bennett Structural seventeen years ago?”
Dominic’s face had changed.
“What?”
“Bennett supplied steel on three Russo projects around that time.”
Harper looked at him.
“Your family?”
“Yes.”
“So my father wasn’t only worried about Malcolm.”
“No.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
Dominic walked toward the archive desk.
“I need to tell you something.”
“That sentence is becoming a problem.”
“My father financed an independent load test on the Grand Hotel site seventeen years ago.”
Harper stared.
“Matteo Russo?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“One of his companies was considering buying the hotel.”
“And?”
“The test failed.”
Harper looked back at Jonathan’s note.
M. knows the river test failed.
“Matteo?”
“Possibly.”
“So your father knew the West Wing foundation couldn’t take additional load.”
“He knew something was wrong.”
“Did he tell mine?”
Dominic hesitated.
“I believe so.”
“Believe?”
“My father died nine years ago. His project files were incomplete.”
Harper’s phone lit up on the archive desk.
Not an unknown caller.
Chloe.
Harper almost ignored it.
Then she answered.
“What?”
Chloe didn’t bother with hello.
“Is Trent with you?”
Harper stared.
“No.”
A pause.
“He left the gala forty minutes ago.”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because when I asked where he was going, he said he needed to stop you from making another mistake.”
Harper closed her eyes.
“Chloe, your husband and I are not secretly meeting after midnight.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Something in Chloe’s tone stopped her.
Fear.
“What happened?”
“I found something.”
Harper looked at Dominic.
“What?”
“Trent keeps a red notebook in our safe.”
Every muscle in Harper’s body tightened.
“What kind of notebook?”
“Old. Leather. Architect’s field book.”
Her throat went dry.
Chloe continued.
“Your father’s name is written inside.”
Harper gripped the desk.
“Why does Trent have it?”
“He told me you gave it to him years ago.”
“I didn’t.”
Silence.
Then Chloe whispered, “I knew it.”
Harper’s anger shifted.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
“Bring it to me.”
“I already have it.”
“Where are you?”
“Downstairs.”
Harper walked toward the archive door.
Then stopped.
“Chloe?”
“Yes?”
“Does Trent know you took it?”
“No.”
“That’s good.”
Another pause.
“No, Harper.”
Chloe’s voice dropped.
“I don’t think it is.”
“Why?”
“Because there was something else in the safe.”
“What?”
“A photograph of Trent inside this office.”
Harper felt cold.
“How old?”
“Five years.”
Five years.
Before the affair.
Before the breakup.
Before Chloe.
“What was he doing?”
Chloe’s voice shook.
“He was standing beside Malcolm Mercer.”
Harper looked toward the empty drafting-tube slot.
May you like
And Chloe said the sentence that changed what Harper thought she knew about her entire relationship.
“On the back, Malcolm wrote: She trusts him. Use that.”
