The money was supposed to help workers with emergencies.
Some transfers had no receipts.
Others had been approved under unusual circumstances.
Daniel believed the account was being used to disguise payments that should have been recorded elsewhere.
He had not accused a specific person.
He was still gathering evidence.
Then he discovered that one of the accounts had been used to reimburse a payment associated with a former employee who had died.
That was the last subject he discussed with Marianne.
Two days later, he died in the traffic accident.
Elena sat down slowly.
“Did you ever see his notebook?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Marianne closed her eyes.
“I thought I had lost it.”
Luca leaned forward.
“Where did you last see it?”
Marianne described a cardboard box containing Daniel's work papers. After his death, she had kept it in a storage unit. When financial difficulties forced her to give up the unit, she moved the contents into a friend's garage.
Years later, after the friend moved away, Marianne retrieved what remained.
Most of the papers had been damaged by moisture.
She had assumed the notebook was among the items she threw away.
Elena remembered helping her mother sort those boxes as a teenager.
She remembered old tax returns, faded photographs, and folders that smelled of damp cardboard.
But she also remembered a small black notebook her mother had placed in a kitchen drawer.
“Mom, what happened to the black notebook?”
Marianne stared at her.
“I gave it to you.”
Elena's heart stopped.
“No, you didn't.”
“I did. You were sixteen. You wanted to keep something of your father's because you were angry that everyone else seemed to have forgotten him.”
Elena rushed to her bedroom.
She opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a small wooden box.
Inside were childhood photographs, a broken watch, a birthday card, and several keepsakes she had carried through three apartments.
At the bottom lay a thin black notebook.
The cover was worn at the corners.
Elena had not opened it in years.
She returned to the living room and placed it on the table.
Luca did not touch it.
“It's yours,” he said.
Elena opened the first page.
Most of the early entries were ordinary accounting notes. Dates, account numbers, references to payroll cycles.
Then, halfway through the notebook, the handwriting changed.
The entries became shorter.
More urgent.
One page contained a list of payments associated with Northstar Administrative Services.
Another referenced the Employee Welfare Reserve.
On the final written page, Daniel had recorded three names.
RICHARD SLOANE.
CHARLES HARLAN.
A. VARENZI.
Below them was a sentence.
The money is not disappearing. Someone is moving it through accounts that look legitimate until you compare the dates.
Elena looked up.
“Charles Harlan was already involved back then?”
“Possibly,” Serena said. “The name alone doesn't establish his role. We need to compare it with employment records and the original transaction files.”
Luca looked at the initials beneath the names.
“A. Varenzi was my father.”
Marianne covered her mouth.
For the first time, Luca looked frightened.
Not because he had discovered a possible criminal scheme.
Because he had discovered that his father might have known about it.
Elena closed the notebook.
“My father was trying to uncover something. Your father may have known. And someone is sending me documents designed to make him look guilty.”
“Or someone wants us to find the account,” Luca said.
She looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“The page could be a warning. It could be a threat. It could be an attempt to mislead us. We don't know who sent it or why.”
Serena carefully sealed the notebook in a protective sleeve after photographing each page.
“We'll have an independent forensic examiner assess it. We should also document when you found it and who has handled it.”
Marianne wiped her eyes.
“Daniel always said the truth would protect us.”
Elena reached for her mother's hand.
“He was trying to protect people, Mom.”
“Yes,” Marianne whispered. “And I was so afraid of losing him that I stopped asking questions.”
Luca looked down at the notebook.
“I spent years believing my father's business was simply complicated. I never considered that people might have used its complexity to hide things from him—or with his knowledge.”
Elena's voice was quiet.
“Then we find out which it was.”
Luca met her eyes.
For once, there was no challenge between them.
Only a shared determination to discover what had happened.
But neither of them knew that, across the city, Richard Sloane had just received a message containing a photograph of Daniel's notebook.
His reply took only three words.
Find the original.
CHAPTER 6 — THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Richard Sloane lived in a quiet neighborhood north of Manhattan.
His house was large but understated, with neatly trimmed hedges, a stone walkway, and a brass doorbell polished to a mirror finish.
Luca arrived with Serena and an attorney from the company's independent review team.
Elena came too.
She knew she was not a financial investigator, and she understood why Serena had advised her not to participate in the formal interview.
But the notebook belonged to her father.
She wanted to hear the answers directly.
Sloane greeted them in a navy cardigan and offered coffee.
He looked older than the photographs Luca had seen in the company archives. His hair had turned almost entirely white, and he walked with a slight stiffness in one leg.
When Luca explained the reason for the visit, Sloane's expression barely changed.
“Daniel Marlowe,” he said. “I remember him.”
“Do you remember the Employee Welfare Reserve?” Serena asked.
“Of course.”
“Do you remember discrepancies involving Northstar Administrative Services?”
Sloane folded his hands.
“There were discrepancies in several accounts during that period. We were operating dozens of businesses across multiple states. Administrative errors were inevitable.”
“Was Daniel investigating them?”
“Yes.”
“Did he complete his report?”
Sloane paused.
“He prepared a preliminary review.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
Luca leaned forward.