Chapter 6 - The Setup
The rain poured in sheets across the rear alley of Commercial Wharf.
Trevor was pinned facedown against the wet granite pavers, his designer raincoat ruined, a boot pressing firmly into the middle of his back. Beside him, the three hired saboteurs were already zip-tied and lined up against the brick wall, their lockpicks and bags of fabricated evidence scattered across the cobblestones.
Grace and Roman walked out the reinforced steel door beneath the wide overhang. Roman held a large black umbrella over Grace, sheltering her completely from the driving rain.
When Trevor heard the sound of their footsteps, he twisted his neck, his face caked with black road grime and rainwater.
“Grace!” Trevor wailed, spit flying from his lips. “Grace, tell them to let me up! This is a mistake! I was just—I was coming to warn you!”
Grace stopped five feet away, Roman standing close at her side like an immovable sentinel.
Declan knelt down, unzipping the heavy canvas duffel bag that one of the intruders had been carrying. He dumped the contents onto the cobblestones under the light of the security lantern.
Several jars of nineteenth-century synthetic pigments rolled out, alongside sheets of eighteenth-century legal vellum and an antique iron stylus. At the bottom of the bag was a forged Northlight Heritage acquisition register with Grace’s signature forged at the bottom of twenty pages.
“A warning, Trevor?” Grace asked, her voice dropping with utter contempt. “You were coming to plant fake forensic supplies in my laboratory so Celeste Harrow could send the police here tomorrow morning.”
Trevor’s eyes darted frantically toward Roman’s unreadable face.
“She made me do it!” Trevor shrieked, breaking completely. “Celeste promised me five hundred thousand dollars! She said she’d pay off the Morans! Grace, you know what the Morans will do to me! They’ll drown me in the harbor! You loved me once—you can’t let him kill me!”
Grace looked down at the man she had spent three years trying to please.
She remembered the nights she had skipped dinner because he said her hips were getting wide. She remembered crying in the bathroom after he told her that her intellectual passions were boring and unmarketable. She remembered the sheer terror she had felt when he slapped her for her dead mother’s money.
Looking at him now, shivering in the mud, crying like a spoiled child caught stealing candy, Grace felt no anger.
She felt only a vast, liberating emptiness.
“I never loved you, Trevor,” Grace said, her voice cutting through the sound of the rain. “I was just afraid of being alone after my father died. And you took advantage of that grief until there was nothing left to bleed.”
“Grace, please!”
“Declan,” Roman interjected, his voice cutting like a razor. “Did you search his pockets?”
Declan reached into Trevor’s wet coat and pulled out an encrypted burner phone. He unlocked it using Trevor’s thumb, scrolling through the screen for three seconds before looking up at Roman.
“Every text message is here, boss,” Declan reported. “Direct instructions from Celeste Harrow’s personal number. Time-stamped photos of the forged documents, delivery addresses, and wire transfer confirmations from an offshore account in the Caymans belonging to Harrow Acquisitions LLC.”
A ghost of a smile touched Roman’s lips.
“Pack it all up,” Roman ordered. “Call Commissioner Vance. Tell him I have a special delivery for the State Attorney’s Financial Crimes Division.”
“No! No police!” Trevor screamed, thrashing against the ground. “If I go to jail, the Morans will find me inside!”
“Then I suggest you request protective custody, Baines,” Roman said coldly. “Because by eight o’clock tomorrow morning, every news outlet in Massachusetts will have copies of these text messages.”
Roman turned to Grace, his arm resting gently against the small of her back as he guided her back toward the dry sanctuary of the building.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly as the heavy door sealed out Trevor’s hysterical screams.
Grace looked down at her hands. They weren't shaking. Not even a tremor.
“I’ve never been better,” she said. She looked up at Roman, a fierce, brilliant spark lighting her eyes. “Tomorrow is the annual Winter Solstice Antiquities Gala at the State Street Exchange, isn't it?”
Roman’s eyes flared with sudden interest. “It is. Malcolm Harrow is the guest of honor. Celeste is scheduled to introduce the fall acquisitions catalog to two hundred of the wealthiest collectors in the country.”
“Then we shouldn't let them wait until Tuesday’s regulatory hearing,” Grace said, a slow, predatory smile touching her lips. “Let’s go to the gala, Roman. Let’s bring the evidence to their own party.”
Roman stared at her for a long, breathless moment. A deep, approving laugh rumbled in his chest.
May you like
“Grace Halbrook,” he whispered, leaning down until his lips were inches from hers, “you are a magnificent, dangerous woman. Let’s go burn their house down.”
***