Chapter 11 - The Mistress’s Ledger
Three days after the auction, a woman was waiting outside the Bennett Shipping offices on Commercial Wharf.
She wore an oversized trench coat, dark sunglasses, and a beige silk scarf wrapped tightly around her hair, but there was no disguising Julianna Vance. The woman who had stood on my stairs on Christmas Eve sipping vintage Dom Pérignon while I lay curled around my unborn child now looked hollow-cheeked, trembling as the harbor wind whipped the hem of her coat against her bare ankles.
Nathan saw her first. He stepped out of the office door, his six-foot-three frame instantly blocking the walkway.
"Step off the pier, Miss Vance," Nathan said, his voice flat and dangerous. "You have thirty seconds before I have harbor security remove you for trespassing."
"Wait! Please, Nathan—Mr. Bennett, please!" she cried, pulling off her sunglasses. Her eyes were red-rimmed and sunken, devoid of the smug, triumphant arrogance that had defined her face four months earlier. "I’m not here to cause trouble. I have nowhere else to go. Preston’s lawyers... they cleaned out my townhouse. They took the car. They said if I spoke to the grand jury, I’d be named as an unindicted co-conspirator!"
I walked out of the office, holding Claire against my shoulder. Hearing my footsteps, Julianna turned. When her eyes fell on Claire, she took a half-step back, as if burned.
"Grace," she whispered, her hands shaking violently. "I didn't... on Christmas, I didn't know he was going to—"
"You laughed," I said. My voice was entirely devoid of anger; it was colder than the water beneath the pilings. "You raised your glass, Julianna. You smiled while I was on the floor."
"Because I was terrified of him!" she gasped, tears cutting tracks through her heavy makeup. "He told me that if I blinked, if I hesitated, he would bury me in the bay just like he did—" She stopped abruptly, her mouth clapping shut as if she had swallowed glass.
Nathan took one deliberate step closer to her. "Just like he did to who?"
Julianna reached into her leather tote bag. Nathan’s hand dropped toward his belt instinctively, but she only pulled out a black, cloth-bound notebook held together with two heavy rubber bands.
"Preston didn't act alone," Julianna whispered, holding the book out like an explosive device. "The money he used to buy into the Bennett company didn't come from his trust fund. His trust fund was empty ten years ago. It came from an overseas syndicate. He wasn't just laundering shipping fees; he was washing kickbacks for the offshore drilling permits. And he kept every wire transfer logged in this ledger."
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I stared at the black notebook. "Why give this to us?"
"Because they know I saw it," she sobbed, wrapping her arms around her ribs. "Yesterday morning, someone cut the brake lines on my sedan. If I don't give this to someone who can put Preston and his backers behind bars for the rest of their lives, I won't survive until summer."
