by Rickie Blair
Benjamin Levitt shivered and opened his eyes even though there was nothing to see in the blackness. He reached for the threadbare blanket and pulled it up to his chin. A sound had awakened him and he struggled to remember it.
A key rattled in a lock and a door opened and closed. Footsteps.
His heart hammering, he scrabbled backwards until he hit the wall. He cowered against it, clutching the blanket with both hands. The footsteps came closer, then stopped. Benjamin held his breath.
“I’ve brought you food and a pot of tea,” a woman said. Cutlery clinked against china as she placed a tray on the floor beside his mattress.
He listened intently. She was alone. Benjamin exhaled with relief.
“Do you need to use the washroom?”
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse, almost a whisper. “Please.”
He stood and bent his head to allow her to tie the scarf over his eyes. The door opened with a creak and he shuffled along a corridor, her hand guiding his elbow. He knew better than to run. The woman seemed to be alone, but her companion might be only steps away. Benjamin had bolted twice, and twice he had suffered the consequences. When he entered the bathroom, she released him and closed the door.
Benjamin pulled off the scarf and fumbled on the wall for the light switch, toggling it on and off before remembering the fixture over the sink had no bulb. A crack under the door provided enough light to make out the toilet looming in the shadows, as well as the lack of any other exit. There was no way out of this room except by the one he had entered.
When he was done, he replaced the scarf with trembling hands and rapped on the door. With the woman beside him, he shuffled back to the room with the mattress. Benjamin took off his blindfold and swept the floor with his hands, looking for the tray. His fingers banged up against its edge and he pulled it closer.
“Enjoy your breakfast,” she said.
He shielded his eyes as the door opened with a flash of light and closed with a thud.
Breakfast. That meant Day Four. He fumbled for the pot and poured his tea, keeping a fingertip curled over the rim of the mug so it wouldn’t overfill. He held the warm mug against his chest. No one had told him why he was here. He didn’t even know where ‘here’ was.
Sipping the tea bit by bit to make it last, he tried to figure it out.
After forcing him into a van, his abductors had driven for hours. When they dragged him out, still blindfolded, a breeze ruffled his hair and he caught a salt tang in his throat.
So they were near the ocean.
A door had opened with a gust of stale air, and he had been shoved across a hard stone floor and down a flight of stairs. Benjamin stumbled along, propelled by rough hands, until keys rattled and a door creaked open.
That meant they were underground. A basement?
He had been shoved into a windowless room. Afterward, he pounded on the door and yelled until his voice was hoarse. He scrabbled at the doorframe until his fingers were cracked and bloody. No one came. So it couldn’t be a basement. A soundproofed bunker, then?
Panic gnawed at his gut. Who would build an underground bunker? Someone with unlimited resources, certainly. He shuddered.
Benjamin poured another cup of tea with his head crooked to the door, dreading the sound of the key in the lock. He groped on the tray for the last sandwich and shoved it into his mouth. After that he pulled the blanket back up to his ears.
He had no desire to fumble around the darkened room, searching for an exit. It seemed wiser to conserve his strength. Action wasn’t his strong suit, anyway. He was more of a thinker. But how could he think his way out of this?
In his first panicked days of captivity he had assumed Raymond Fulton was behind his abduction. He stumbled blindly back and forth, cracking his knees and bashing his head, fearing his captors would return and silence his accusations for good. Finally he crumpled to the floor, defeated. Fulton didn’t care about him, not any more. Benjamin’s theories about the Castlebar Fund had been publicly dismissed, and his arguments demolished, all without Fulton uttering a word. His cheeks burned at the memory.
It had been in a boardroom at Capital Street’s offices on Water Street. Benjamin’s fraud allegations had been reported in the media, dissected on blogs, and talked about in boardrooms and on trading floors up and down Wall Street. After several firms withdrew their clients’ money from the Castlebar Fund, Fulton reached the limit of his patience. He invited reporters, analysts, and a few large investors to a meeting at which Benjamin would be allowed to present his theories.
The boardroom was packed when Benjamin stood up. All twenty seats around the gleaming ebony table were taken, more chairs lined the walls, and late arrivals crowded the open doorway. As he proclaimed the fund’s investment returns impossible, eyebrows raised and murmurs swirled. Over the next two hours Benjamin explained the intricacies of options hedging and market timing. He handed out spreadsheets. He discussed algorithms and metadata. He drew graphs and pie charts on a whiteboard with arrows depicting interrelationships.
Fulton smiled calmly and listened attentively. A young blonde woman sat beside him, also listening attentively. For the first half-hour the audience members, too, listened attentively. Then they checked their phones. A few stepped away to take calls and did not return. With every person who left Benjamin talked even faster until he was almost spitting.
It couldn’t be simpler. But when he turned from drawing yet another series of arrows, he caught the last of the analysts rolling his eyes at Fulton. The investors had already headed upstairs for a catered lunch.
Benjamin slammed the whiteboard marker down.
“How can you not see this?” Shaking his head, he walked over and flopped into his seat at the table.
The analyst, looking embarrassed, excused himself and left the room, followed by the last of the reporters.
After the door closed behind them, Fulton smiled. He rose from the table and strolled over to Benjamin, still smiling. He stood with both hands on the back of Benjamin’s chair and leaned down until his head was inches from his ear.
“Mr. Levitt,” he said softly. “I presume you know Aristotle’s fable about the accountant who cried wolf?”
A chill went down Benjamin’s spine. He nodded.
“Then you also know the ending. ‘This is how liars are rewarded. Even if they tell the truth, no one believes them.’”
“I’m … I’m not a liar.”
Fulton straightened up, adjusted his tie and walked to the door. “I think you should leave now, Mr. Levitt. I don’t think we’ll be seeing you again.” He walked out, leaving the door open.
Benjamin’s heart pounded as he gathered his papers and stuffed them into his briefcase. The blonde woman smiled at him, rose from her seat, and extended her hand to the door. As he passed through reception, headed for the exit, no one bothered to even look at him.
Chapter Thirteen
Ruby snapped the tab on a chilled can of ginger ale and frowned over Hari’s shoulder.
“I thought you said this would be easy.” She took a swig from the can, casting a wistful glance at the sunlight streaming through her apartment windows.
Her partner shook his head as he scrolled through the long list of names on the laptop in front of him.
“I thought it would be. In most billing frauds, the embezzler sends his victim invoices from a fake company. To find a suspected fraud, you sift through the victim’s paid invoices for multiple payments to the same vendor. Then you check to see if those purchases were authorized. It takes time, but it’s not hard.”
“But why would TradeFair pay fake invoices?”
“TradeFair deals with hundreds of suppliers, for everything from paper clips to the goods it imports and resells. Many aren’t even in the United States. Billing department employees wouldn’t recognize them all.”
“But they’d have some control over it, wouldn’t they?”
“The billing department is supposed to check TradeFa
ir’s list of approved suppliers before they pay an invoice. The company also has a software program that flags unusual payment demands. Like, say, an invoice for five thousand dollars from a supplier that normally bills for five hundred.”
Ruby reached for a glass and poured her soda into it.
“Then how could billing fraud slip through?”
Hari tapped his fingers on the counter and stared at the screen.
“Benjamin might be wrong, and there is no fraud.”
“Is that likely?”
“Well, he does have quite an imagination. But before we rule out fraud we have to consider all possibilities.”
“Such as?”
“A clerk in the billing department could override the software program. But Benjamin said the embezzler was in senior management, which rules out an accounting clerk.”
“So what’s next?”
Hari sat up straight, rolling his shoulders, and pulled the laptop nearer.
“We review the credentials of every supplier on TradeFair’s approved list. When we find the fake one, we check to see which TradeFair executive approved it for the list. Then we’ll have our embezzler. I hope.”
“But there are hundreds of names.” Ruby pushed away her glass and glanced at the sunshine flooding the floor. She looked at the sofa where Charlie sat with his legs quivering, ready to leap off at a word from her. So much for their planned excursion through Central Park. When she turned back, Hari smiled.
“I can do this alone, Ruby. And besides, your job is to find Benjamin.”
She winced at the thought. Not much progress there.
“Did you find any hints in his personnel file?”
“I called his sister, but I haven’t reached the neighbor yet.”
With a nod, Hari closed the laptop, pushed back his stool, and stood.
“Time for a visit to Jersey City.”
Ruby leapt off the stool with a grin.
“Ooh, road trip. Excellent. Can we take the Mustang?” She froze at the look on Hari’s face. Oops. She had forgotten about the feds seizing his cars. “You know, that Fiesta is surprisingly comfortable.”
Hari lowered his head and looked at her, his mouth twitching, and then snatched up the key ring by the laptop.
“Let’s go.”
An hour later, they parked on the street outside Benjamin’s Jersey City house. The curtains in the front window were drawn and the screen door was ajar, held open by a yellowing stack of newspapers. As they walked to the porch, Hari and Ruby dodged two boys on skateboards rolling along the sidewalk.
Hari knocked. No answer. They tried the bungalow next door. Mrs. Murphy wasn’t home, either, although a dog inside the house yipped at their knocks.
“Maybe she went out for groceries,” Ruby said. “Let’s check Benjamin’s back door.”
After negotiating the weed-choked passageway between the two houses, they climbed three worn steps to the back stoop. A curtain over the window in the back door was also closed. Hari tilted his head, listening.
“I don’t hear anyone inside.”
Ruby brushed past him and tried the handle. It gave way under her hand.
“This is open.” She ran her hand down the doorframe and stopped at the fresh scratches that marred the wood around the lock. “Someone forced it.” Turning the handle all the way, she pushed the door open and stepped over the threshold.
“We can’t go in, Ruby. We have to call the police and report the break-in.” Hari put a hand on her arm, but she had already stepped into the kitchen.
“C’mon.” She tugged her arm away. “Don’t be such a wuss.”
He glanced to either side and then ducked in after her, closing the door. They stood in the kitchen, letting their eyes adjust to the gloom.
“This is breaking and entering,” he said. “Well, entering, anyway.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The door was open.”
“This is not a good idea.” Hari followed her down the darkened hall, shaking his head. “We don’t know where Benjamin is, and we don’t know why someone broke into his house.”
Ignoring him, Ruby walked into the living room and stopped.
A bookcase lay on its side amid wooden shelves, books, and CDs scattered across the floor. Sofa cushions had been sliced open and rubber foam had floated everywhere. The coffee table was overturned and a floor lamp leaned precariously against the wall. Ruby blew air through her lips as she scanned the room.
“Somebody did a number on this place. I wonder what they were looking for?”
Hari turned to the back door.
“I don’t know. But if there was anything to find, it’s long gone. Let’s go.”
Ruby jerked her head around at a sudden noise.
“Wait.” She grabbed his arm. “Did you hear that?” The handle turned on the kitchen door and her breath caught in her throat.
“Hari?” she croaked.
“Over there,” he whispered, pointing to the sofa. “Hurry.”
They crouched behind the sofa and Hari motioned to her to slide underneath. She ran her hand under the fabric flap, but the opening was too tight. Instead, she bent as close to the floor as possible and Hari leaned over her. Why was she always so impulsive?
The kitchen door slammed and footsteps sounded along the hall into the living room. The footsteps stopped, followed by the unmistakable sound of someone racking the slide on a handgun. Ruby pressed her hands against her stomach, trying not to gasp.
More footsteps, coming closer, then silence.
Hari and Ruby held their breath.
The footsteps resumed, but in the opposite direction, down the hall and up the stairs. A minute later they heard steps above their head, moving from room to room.
Hari peered over the sofa.
“I don’t see anyone,” he whispered.
“Where’s your gun?” she whispered back.
He stared at her.
“What gun?”
“You said you got a carry permit after the stabbing.”
“I was approved for a permit, yes, but I never actually got a gun.”
“Are you kidding me?”
“You don’t have a gun.”
She held out her hands and shrugged. “Yes, but I’m half Canadian.”
He glared at her. “We have to get out of here.”
They crept through the hall and into the kitchen. Hari halted with a hand on her arm and turned his head, listening. The footsteps were coming back down the stairs. He pushed her toward the kitchen door.
“Run!”
She darted for the back door and wrenched it open with Hari close behind her. The bullet hit the doorframe beside them with a deafening crack. Ruby screamed. A shove on her back pushed her off the stoop and onto the ground three steps below. Hari landed right behind her.
They scrambled to their feet, raced down the narrow alley between the two houses, sprinted across the front yard and ducked behind the car. Hari motioned for her to open the back door and crawl in with her head down. Then he gulped a deep breath, climbed into the driver’s seat and thrust the key into the ignition.
A bullet shattered the back window and Ruby screamed again, but Hari had already gunned the accelerator. Cowering in the back seat, Ruby clapped her hands to her ears as the Fiesta sprang from the parking spot, rocking as it nicked the bumper of the van parked in front of it, and screeched onto the street. They tore through the stop sign without even slowing.
As the car careened around the next corner, Ruby slid from one side of the back seat to the other. Her elbow crashed into the door and sparks of pain rocketed up her arm. She scrabbled for a seat belt and managed to click it into place as the car accelerated. Her heart was thumping so hard it felt as if it would burst from her chest.
“Are they following us?” Hari shouted over his shoulder.
Ruby twisted to look out the rear window.
“I don’t think so,” she gasped. They drove for another ten minutes with no sign of pursui
t. Hari pulled into a gas station lot, turned off the engine with a shaking hand and rested his head on the steering wheel. He sat up and turned to face her.
“Are you all right?”
Unclipping her seatbelt, Ruby hooked an arm over the front seat. Grinning, she flashed him a thumbs-up.
“That was very impressive, Hari. You’re really getting the hang of this P.I. stuff.” She slapped the back of the seat with her hand. “What’s our next move?”
Hari’s jaw went slack as he stared at her. Safety glass from the broken window crunched under Ruby’s feet as she shifted position.
“What? Was that wrong?”
“We have to call the police.”
“Oh, we can’t do that.” She waggled a finger at him, shaking her head. “We’d have to tell them we broke into Benjamin’s house, and I’m pretty sure your arrangement with the feds prohibits criminal behavior like breaking and entering. I’d hate to see you in jail.”
He took off his glasses, rubbed a hand over his face with a heavy sigh, replaced his glasses and glared at her.
“My arrangement, as you call it, is not important compared to your safety. Somebody tried to kill us.”
“Well, he didn’t succeed. We’re fine. And besides—” she reached into the footwell and pulled out a rectangular object, brushing glass fragments off it. “If we call the police we’ll have to give them this.”
He stared at it. “Is that—?”
“Benjamin’s laptop? Yes, it is.” Beaming, she held it out to him. “I found it under the sofa and I thought, well, he’s not using it at the moment, is he? So I took it.”
Hari’s jaw dropped again.
She tilted her head.
“Was that wrong?”
Chapter Fourteen
Hari pulled the battered Fiesta into the parking garage and got out, slamming the door behind him. With his footsteps echoing off the concrete walls, he marched to the stairwell and headed for the street. As they walked the eight blocks to his apartment, Ruby struggled to keep up, holding the laptop to her chest.
“C’mon, Hari, you’ll have to talk to me at some point.”
