Seattle smelled like rain and evergreen. Victoria had forgotten how much she hated both.
Her rental car crawled through morning traffic, windshield wipers struggling against a drizzle that seemed personal. The GPS led her to a brick building in Capitol Hill, retrofitted into a co-working space for non-profits. Alice May worked on the third floor, at a desk by the window, where she could watch the rain.
Victoria had done her homework on the flight over. Alice May, now twenty-six. No criminal record. No social media presence to speak of. A single bedroom apartment in a neighborhood she couldn't afford on a non-profit salary. Someone was helping her. Or someone was paying her.
The elevator smelled like old coffee. Victoria stepped out onto the third floor and found the non-profit's glass door. A handwritten sign read: "Oceans Forward - Protecting Marine Habitats."
She pushed the door open.
The office was small and cluttered with posters of whales and recycling bins. Three desks, two of them empty. At the third desk, a young woman with dyed pink hair and a nose ring looked up from her laptop. Her eyes widened when she saw Victoria.
"Alice May?" Victoria asked.
"Who's asking?"
"Victoria Hart. I'm a consultant working for Meridian Group."
Alice's face went pale. She stood up so fast her chair nearly tipped over. "I don't talk about Meridian. I signed an NDA."
"Your NDA expired six months ago. I checked."
Alice's mouth opened, then closed. She looked toward the empty desks, as if hoping someone would rescue her. No one came.
"Can we talk?" Victoria said. "Fifteen minutes. That's all I'm asking."
"I don't know anything."
"Then fifteen minutes won't hurt."
Alice hesitated. Then she grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair and walked past Victoria toward the elevator. "Not here. There's a coffee shop across the street."
They walked in silence. The rain had softened to a mist. Victoria watched Alice's reflection in the wet pavement—young, scared, but not surprised. She'd been expecting this. Or someone like it.
The coffee shop was nearly empty. Alice ordered a hot chocolate. Victoria ordered black coffee. They sat at a table by the window, away from the barista's ears.
"You worked in Meridian's finance department," Victoria began. "You had access to the Luxembourg account."
"I was a junior accountant. I didn't have full access."
"But you saw things."
Alice wrapped her hands around her mug. Her pink hair fell across her face, hiding her eyes. "I don't know what you want me to say."
"The truth. That's all."
"The truth?" Alice laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You want the truth? I quit because I was scared. Every month, money disappeared from an account that wasn't supposed to exist. I asked questions. No one answered. Then one day, someone left an envelope on my desk."
"What was in it?"
"A plane ticket. One way to Seattle. And a note that said, 'Start over, or don't.'"
Victoria felt her pulse quicken. "You kept the note?"
"I threw it away. I was twenty-three. I didn't know any better."
"Who left it?"
"I never saw them. Security footage was conveniently missing. When I asked HR about it, they said the cameras in that hallway had been broken for weeks."
Victoria set down her coffee. "You told this to Nathaniel's lawyers?"
"I told them someone threatened me. They didn't care. They just wanted to know if I'd stolen anything. I hadn't. So they let me go."
"They didn't investigate the threat?"
Alice shook her head. "They said it was probably a prank. But it wasn't. I know it wasn't."
"Why?"
Alice leaned forward, lowering her voice. "Because the same thing happened to someone else. A guy in IT. He found something he shouldn't have. A month later, he was gone. Not fired. Just... gone. His desk was cleared out overnight. No one ever talked about him."
"Do you remember his name?"
"Mark something. Mark... Chen. No, Mark Tran. He was Vietnamese-American. Nice guy. Kept to himself."
Victoria pulled out her phone and typed the name. Mark Tran. Meridian Group IT department. Terminated? Or disappeared?
"Thank you, Alice."
"Am I in danger?"
Victoria looked at the young woman's face. She was barely out of her twenties, and she'd been running from this for three years.
"I don't know," Victoria said honestly. "But if you remember anything else, call me."
She handed Alice her card. Alice took it with trembling fingers.
Victoria stood up to leave. Then she paused.
"The plane ticket," she said. "Do you remember the airline?"
"Delta. Why?"
"Just curious."
Victoria walked out into the rain. She didn't go back to her rental car. She stood on the sidewalk, letting the water soak through her blazer, and dialed a number she hadn't used in years.
"Fiona? It's Victoria. I need a favor."