Not anger.
Calculation.
Caroline continued.
“You know how this works. You give me what I need, everybody walks away.”
Alex looked at Maya.
She was tracing the call.
“Where do you want to meet?” he asked.
Caroline laughed.
“I knew you'd remember.”
She gave an address.
An abandoned textile warehouse.
Midnight.
Then disconnected.
Maya checked her laptop.
“Burner phone. Signal vanished.”
Alex stood.
“You're not going,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You know it's a trap.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
“Because she thinks I still have something she needs.”
“Do you?”
He looked at me.
“Yes.”
That evening, Alex finally told us the part he had hidden even from investigators.
The evidence in Sophie's condo wasn't only financial records.
It contained a videotape.
Nineteen years old.
On it, Martin Vale met with three men and a woman.
They discussed laundering money, bribing judges, falsifying property transfers, and arranging the disappearance of a witness.
