Page 109 of Gave Proof Through the Night

“It’s you.” My voice comes out flatter than I expect. “You’re the guy. The creep who hit on her when she was barely old enough to vote.”

He doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t have the decency to look uncomfortable about it.

I want to put my fist through his face right here in the middle of a hotel lobby. I don’t. Not because he doesn’t deserve it. Because I know better, and because I’m not giving him the satisfaction of playing the victim.

“Don’t underestimate me, little man.” I keep my voice down, grinding the words through my teeth. “I’ve got fifty hockey players who will back me up, and trust me, you do not want to find out what that looks like. If I see you anywhere near Erica… I will end you.”

He finishes the mimosa in one long swallow, sets the empty glass down with a click, and stands, straightening his tie like he’s the one who came out ahead here.

“She’s going down, hockey player.” He’s already walking, already tossing it over his shoulder like a parting gift. “The question is, are you going down with her?”

I watch him go, watch the doors swallow him whole, and for a second all I can hear is dear old dad and thief and behind bars, looping like a bad replay review.

I don’t trust that man or anything that comes out of his mouth, even his half-truths. A man who’d set up another man as his fall guy is just as guilty of whatever put Erica’s dad in prison.

If he shows up at the gala tomorrow night, I’ll be ready.

My hands are still shaking as I make my way up the elevator to my room.

23

ERICA

Chapter playlist:

Snake Eyes — David Holmes

Game On! — Daniel Pemberton

Dale is truly terrifying and I’m not even remotely upset.

“I got you, suckers!”

He bursts out of the penthouse bedroom in yesterday’s wrinkled polo, glasses crooked, and his laptop held over his head like a championship belt. Every single one of us jumps.

“Dale!” Tanya presses a hand flat to her chest. “Goodness! My heart.”

“Sorry, sorry.” He isn’t sorry. He’s grinning like he swallowed the sun. “But you all need to see this.”

He turns the laptop around. Even from across the room, I can read the header on the file he’s pulled up. Whitfield & Kane Trust Co. Foreclosure Filings, 1928–1971.

“The money funded political favors,” he says. “It trails all the way back to before the Depression. There’s falsified paperwork on basically every file I could get my hands on. Not just the Armitages. It’s a pattern. A whole ugly, decades-long pattern.”

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Yes!” He sets the laptop down on the table where I’m having my bagel. “It’s all here. The trail starts in Lexington, that’s where I looked first. But then I went down this rabbit hole of disputes. Families who pushed back on false loans. None of them won, of course, but then I followed the money. Beneath the ledger, Whitfield & Kane operated a systemic political machine.”

“That’s some rabbit hole,” Ivy says.

“And this is where it gets really good,” Dale continues. “Over the years, Whitfield & Kane took out ghost loans, which were then transferred to private offshore accounts. This washed money bought votes, funded luxurious campaigns, or paid for blackmail material to keep uncooperative politicians in line.”

“I’m a little bit scared right now,” Rue says.

“And check this out, Whitfield & Kane used code words to conceal what they were really doing. A ledger entry reading ‘Bought 4,000 crates of premium structural bananas’ was actually a code for bribing a state senator. Isn’t that cool?”

I lick cream cheese from the corner of my mouth. “I… guess?”

“Then, when the fake loans defaulted, Whitfield & Kane wrote them off as bad debt caused by the economic crash, hiding the crime in plain sight. I mean, I’m not saying they caused the Great Depression, but I’m not NOT saying it either.”