Chapter 11 - The Knock Before the Dawn
Two weeks later, the first heavy snow of the winter began to fall over the city, muffling the sounds of traffic and blanketing the canal boats in thick, silent white.
It was nearly midnight. I was sitting at my drafting table, reviewing the final audit wrap-up documents before the court recess for the holidays. The apartment was warm, the radiator clanking its familiar, rhythmic cadence, a jazz record spinning softly on the turntable in the corner.
Everything was in its place. The legal files were boxed and sealed. The past was buried under four feet of certified court filings.
Then came the knock.
It wasn't the tentative, apologetic knock of a neighbor, nor was it the frantic, heavy pounding Daniel had made during the storm. It was three sharp, rapid raps against the wood—desperate, muffled, and accompanied by the sound of someone gasping for breath on the other side of the door.
I froze, the pen hovering over the paper.
I didn't move for several seconds, my heart pounding a sudden, violent warning against my ribs. "Who is it?" I called out, my voice tight.
No answer. Just a low, ragged sob and the sound of a body sliding down against the outside panel of the door.
I walked quietly to the entryway, keeping the chain latch firmly engaged, and pulled the door open two inches.
The woman sitting collapsed on the cold hallway runner was barely recognizable.
It was Brooke.
Her designer coat was torn at the shoulder, soaked with dirty slush from the street. Her face was bruised—a dark, purplish swelling closing her left eye, her lower lip split and crusted with dried blood. She wasn't wearing shoes; her feet were wrapped in bloody, wet bandages, shivering violently against the floorboards.
When she heard the chain rattle, she looked up, her good eye wide with absolute, primal terror.
"Claire," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper through broken teeth. "Please. Please don't close the door. They think... they think I gave you the second ledger."
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My breath caught in my throat. "What are you talking about?"
"Daniel wasn't the mastermind," she sobbed, reaching through the narrow gap with trembling, blood-stained fingers, clutching a black, encrypted hard drive wrapped in plastic. "He was just the front. The people he stole the money from... they aren't bankers, Claire. They're coming for you."
