Read Chapter 31: The Listener

The mansion was burning in his imagination even before the smoke reached him. Walter pressed his back against the cold marble wall of a corridor he'd never seen, chest heaving, the Colt still warm in his hand. The gunshots had faded into the general noise of chaos—shouting men, barking dogs, the crackle of fire taking hold in the study behind him. He'd run blind through a service hallway, past linen closets and empty maids' quarters, until the architecture shifted from servant utilitarian to something grander. Dark wood panels. Persian runners. The smell of old money and leather.

This wing was unlit. The power had been cut somewhere, or maybe DeVries kept it dark on purpose. Walter moved by touch now, one hand sliding along the wall, the other holding Roy's revolver out in front of him like a blind man's cane. His shoulder ached where the guard had clubbed him. The kerosene still stung his nostrils.

Behind him, distantly, a voice screamed: *"The study! The study's on fire!"*

They'd find the plates soon. The ruined, melted, *destroyed* plates. And then every man on this estate would be hunting him with a fury that had nothing to do with capturing a thief and everything to do with vengeance.

Walter needed a plan. He needed cover. He needed—

The phone rang.

It stopped him cold. A shrill, insistent *brrrring* cutting through the dark from a room just ahead. Walter froze, listening. Who calls a mansion at this hour? And why did the ringing sound so close, so *private*?

He pushed the door open with his shoulder. The room beyond was a small sitting parlor, maybe a secondary office. Moonlight through heavy curtains revealed a desk, a blotter, a brass lamp. And on the desk, a black telephone receiver in its cradle, vibrating with each ring.

Four rings. Five. Six.

Whoever was calling was determined.

Walter crossed the room in three strides. His hand hovered over the receiver. The sensible move was to walk away—every second he spent in this room was a second closer to the dogs finding him. But something in his gut said *answer it*. The same instinct that had made him check the ledger twice at the bank, the same voice that had whispered *fraud* when everyone else saw solvency.

He picked up the phone.

"DeVries residence."

Silence on the other end. Then a voice, clipped and official: "Mr. DeVries. I was beginning to think you'd abandoned your post."

Walter's blood turned to ice water. He knew that voice. Knew the measured cadence, the bureaucratic insistence on precision. He'd heard it in hearings, in depositions, in the cold marble halls of the Federal Reserve building.

*Agent Marcus Hale. Bureau of Investigation.*

Walter had met him once, two years ago, when the bank was failing and Washington had sent its bloodhounds to sniff at the ledgers. Hale had sat across from Walter, asking questions in that same flat tone, watching him with eyes that missed nothing. He'd been the one to deliver the final report that confirmed the collapse. He'd been the one who'd told Walter, almost gently, that no charges would be filed but no jobs would be offered either.

And now Hale thought he was speaking to DeVries.

Walter's throat tightened. One word—one wrong inflection—and the agent would know. But the alternative was hanging up and running, and what then? The fire would be contained. The plates destroyed. But DeVries would still walk free, and Arthur Phelps would still be missing, and Walter would still be nothing but a ghost haunting a ruined life.

He lowered his voice. Pitched it an octave deeper. Let it take on the gravelly, imperious cadence he'd heard DeVries use in the study.

"Hale. You have news at this hour, or are you merely checking on my hospitality?"

A pause. Then a low chuckle. "Forgive the hour, Mr. DeVries. But I thought you'd want to know immediately. The examiner has been located."

Walter's hand tightened on the receiver. The leather of his palm creaked.

"Located," he repeated carefully. "I was under the impression he was... unavailable."

"He was. Is." Hale's voice dropped conspiratorially. "One of my men spotted him two days ago in Springfield. The man's been living like a rat, but he's alive. My source has him holed up in a basement room at the Hotel Meridian. Room B-4, if you can believe it. The basement. Can't imagine the accommodations are fit for a man of his previous station."

Arthur Phelps. The missing examiner. The man who'd vanished four months ago with a folder of evidence that had made DeVries's face go white when Walter mentioned it. Walter had assumed Phelps was dead—another convenient accident in DeVries's long career of making problems disappear.

But he was alive. Hiding. In a hotel basement twenty miles away.

"Is that so." Walter kept his voice flat, bored. "And why are you telling me this rather than retrieving him yourself?"

Another pause. Longer this time. When Hale spoke again, his voice had lost its conspiratorial warmth and taken on something harder, sharper.

"Because, Mr. DeVries, I thought you'd want the opportunity to decide what happens next. He hasn't spoken to anyone yet. Hasn't contacted the press or the Bureau. He's just sitting there, scared and alone, waiting for something."

Waiting for someone to find him. Walter's mind raced. Phelps had been gathering evidence against DeVries for months before he disappeared. He had files, testimonies, paper trails that connected the financier to the counterfeit scheme, to the manipulated bank collapses, to everything.

And DeVries hadn't killed him. Why? Because killing a federal examiner brings heat. But keeping him alive in a hotel basement, watched, contained—that was a different kind of control. A leash.

"Your source is reliable?" Walter asked.

"Absolutely. One of my best men. He's been watching the hotel for three days. Phelps hasn't left the basement once. Food's delivered by a bellhop who's paid well to keep his mouth shut."

A bellhop. Paid well. By whom? DeVries or someone else? Walter filed that detail away.

"Very well," Walter said. "I'll send someone to collect him. You've done well, Hale. There will be a bonus in your next envelope."

"Thank you, sir. I'll keep the source in place until your people arrive. And Mr. DeVries—"

Walter froze, his fingers tightening on the receiver.

"Yes?"

"I thought you should know. There's been activity in the Springfield office. Someone's been asking questions about your holdings. Following paper trails. The kind of questions that could cause problems if they reached the wrong ears."

Walter's mind flashed to Roy. Roy, who'd stolen the document. Roy, who'd been a junior partner. Roy, who'd somehow gotten tangled up in all of this and had mysteriously sent the guards down a false path after Walter's escape.

"Who?" Walter asked.

"A man matching the description of your former associate. The one who went missing a few weeks back. I thought you should know in case it changes your plans."

Former associate. Roy. Roy was asking questions. Roy was following paper trails. And Roy had let Walter escape.

The pieces clicked together with sickening clarity. Roy hadn't been DeVries's traitor—or rather, he had, but not in the way Walter had assumed. Roy had stolen the document to expose DeVries, not to profit from him. Roy had been building his own case. And the false trail he'd sent the guards down? That wasn't a debt between criminals. That was one man helping another escape a monster.

"I see," Walter said slowly. "Thank you for the warning."

"I live to serve, Mr. DeVries." Hale's voice was smooth as oil. "Shall I expect your people at the Meridian within the hour?"

"Within the hour," Walter confirmed. "And Hale—"

"Yes?"

"Tell your source to stay until my man arrives. If Phelps so much as sneezes, I want to know about it."

"Understood. Good evening, Mr. DeVries."

The line went dead.

Walter stood in the dark parlor, the receiver still pressed to his ear, listening to the hum of the dial tone. Outside, the shouts were getting closer. The dogs were still barking. But for one brief, stolen moment, the chaos receded and Walter's mind was clear.

Arthur Phelps was alive. The missing examiner, the man who could testify against DeVries, was sitting in a basement at the Hotel Meridian in Springfield, waiting for someone to come for him.

And Hale thought he was sending DeVries's people.

Walter set the receiver back in its cradle with a soft click. He checked the Colt—five rounds left. The window behind the desk looked out over the dark lawn, and beyond the lawn, the tree line where he'd escaped before. The dogs were converging on the burning study, not this wing. He had a head start.

He didn't know where Roy was. He didn't know whose side Roy was really on. But he knew one thing with absolute certainty: if he could get to Phelps first, if he could get the examiner to safety, then DeVries's whole house of cards came tumbling down.

Walter shoved the window open and slipped out into the night.

The Hotel Meridian was twenty miles away. He had no car, no allies, and a pack of bloodhounds behind him.

But he had a name, a room number, and the voice of a dead man in his throat.

It would have to be enough.