Chapter 2 - THE DEAL IN THE BLACK SUV
Dante’s hand closed around mine.
Not tightly.
That surprised me.
He simply steadied me while I stepped over my broken suitcase and toward the SUV.
Then he released me.
Behind us, the male voices grew louder.
Three men appeared at the far end of the block.
One saw the black SUVs.
He immediately stopped.
The others did too.
Dante didn’t even look at them.
That frightened me more than if he had pulled a gun.
His bodyguard opened the rear door.
I hesitated.
“Once I get inside, am I allowed to get back out?”
Dante looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
“No locked doors?”
“Not from the inside.”
“No taking my phone?”
“It’s dead.”
“You know what I mean.”
His expression changed slightly.
“You’ve spent enough years asking permission from one man.”
The rain streamed from his dark hair.
“You will not ask it from me.”
That was the first thing he said that made me more curious than afraid.
I climbed inside.
My suitcase followed.
The doors closed.
Warm air surrounded me so suddenly my teeth began chattering.
A folded wool blanket sat beside me.
Dante picked it up.
Then stopped.
“May I?”
The question stunned me.
I nodded.
He placed it around my shoulders without touching anything but the fabric.
The SUV moved.
“Where are we going?”
“A hotel I own.”
I stared.
“Of course you own a hotel.”
“One should diversify.”
“You said you were worse than the police.”
“I didn’t say financially irresponsible.”
I almost laughed.
That annoyed me.
“You still haven’t explained why you know so much about Marcus.”
Dante’s faint amusement disappeared.
“We were watching him.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“He works for Brighton and Sons Insurance.”
“I know where my husband works.”
“Do you know what he actually does there?”
“Claims review.”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“Officially, yes. In practice, Marcus Wheeler has spent eighteen months moving money through insurance settlements that should never have existed.”
I stared.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I hoped so.”
“You don’t know him.”
Dante looked at me.
“Neither did you.”
The words hurt because they were cruel.
And because I couldn’t prove they were wrong.
He continued more carefully.
“Marcus has been approving claims involving businesses connected to my organization.”
“There it is.”
“What?”
“Your organization.”
His eyes held mine.
“You understand what I am.”
“I understand men don’t straighten their backs because a hotel owner walks past.”
“No.”
“What are you?”
He considered whether to lie.
I saw the decision.
“I oversee businesses my father built.”
“That means nothing.”
“Some are legal.”
“And the others?”
“Are why your husband became interesting to me.”
My hands tightened around the blanket.
“Mafia.”
He said nothing.
“Oh, God.”
I reached for the door handle.
It opened.
Dante did not stop me.
Wind and rain exploded into the moving vehicle until the driver immediately slowed.
I stared at the unlocked door.
Dante reached past me—not touching—and pulled it closed.
“I told you.”
“You really would have let me out?”
“On a moving road? No. The driver was stopping.”
I looked toward the front.
The SUV had already pulled toward the curb.
Dante’s voice remained calm.
“You can leave.”
“Then why should I stay?”
“Because Marcus used your Social Security number to create three companies.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What?”
Dante removed a folder from the seat pocket.
He opened it.
WHEELER HOUSEHOLD CONSULTING.
My name appeared beneath Marcus’s.
Another page.
EMW BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION.
Then:
E. WHEELER CLAIM SERVICES.
I recognized my signature.
Except I had never signed any of them.
“No.”
“Two hundred eighty-seven thousand dollars moved through those entities this year.”
“I’ve never seen that kind of money.”
“I know.”
“How could you possibly know?”
“Because most of it eventually touched companies I monitor.”
I looked closer.
My date of birth.
My old Portland address.
My mother’s maiden name.
Information Marcus knew.
Information I had trusted him with because he was my husband.
“He stole my identity.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That is one thing I’m trying to learn.”
The SUV stopped beneath the covered entrance of a quiet hotel.
No gold entrance.
No cameras flashing.
Just brick, warm light, and one tired-looking desk clerk.
Dante remained seated.
“I’m going to make you an offer.”
I laughed weakly.
“This is usually where women in crime movies make catastrophic decisions.”
“One month.”
“What?”
“Thirty days.”
He placed a second folder beside the first.
“Independent apartment. Independent bank account funded with twenty thousand dollars as payment for consulting work. A divorce attorney with no connection to me except that I pay the initial retainer. Your own phone. Your own transportation.”
My heart pounded.
“What consulting work?”
“You lived with Marcus for seven years.”
“So?”
“You know his habits.”
“That sounds disturbingly personal.”
“It is.”
He leaned back.
“You know what bills he hated opening. Which names made him nervous. Whether he took calls in another room. Whether he suddenly bought things you couldn’t afford.”
I hated that he was right.
“You want me to spy on my husband.”
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“I want you to remember him.”
“That sounds worse.”
“You don’t contact him. You don’t bait him. You don’t go near Brighton.”
“Then what am I doing?”
“You help us understand the records he created in your name.”
“And after thirty days?”
“You walk away.”
“With twenty thousand dollars?”
“Yes.”
“No debt?”
“No.”
“No favor later?”
“No.”
“Nothing I owe you?”
His eyes darkened.
“Emma, a favor you cannot refuse is not a favor.”
I studied him.
For the first time since Marcus opened my car door and told me to get out, someone was putting choices in front of me.
Real ones.
That should not have felt revolutionary.
But it did.
“I want the contract reviewed by my attorney.”
Dante’s mouth moved slightly.
“Good.”
“My attorney. Not yours.”
“Better.”
“And I want access to whatever has my name on it.”
“If legally possible.”
“Don’t start getting careful now.”
“I’m always careful.”
He glanced at my suitcase.
“Except yesterday.”
Something shifted in his face.
I caught it.
“The sailboat accident?”
“No.”
He reached toward the broken suitcase.
“May I?”
I nodded.
He lifted it.
The damaged wheel assembly dropped loose.
Something fell onto the carpet.
Not clothing.
Not toiletries.
A small laminated photograph.
I picked it up.
The edges were yellow with age.
Three adults stood outside a roadside diner.
One was my father.
Younger.
Smiling.
Beside him stood my mother in the red coat she had worn every winter of my childhood.
And between them stood a teenage boy with a split lip and a bandage around his ribs.
Dark hair.
Almost-black eyes.
A nose that had not yet been broken.
I slowly looked up at Dante.
The room felt suddenly too small.
“That’s my mother.”
His gaze stayed on the photograph.
“I know.”
My fingers began trembling.
“And that…”
I looked from the teenager to the man sitting across from me.
Dante Caruso’s face had hardened.
But grief had already escaped through the cracks.
“That’s you.”
He nodded.
“Your mother saved my life twenty years ago.”
And suddenly I understood.
Dante had not stopped at that bus shelter because I happened to be Marcus Wheeler’s abandoned wife.
May you like
He had known exactly who I was before he opened the SUV door.
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