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Chapter 79 – Echoes in Ink
Last Updated:
2025-08-14 15:40:57
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Undercover Hearts Chapter 82 – Glass Walls
SophiaThe call comes just after nine, my second cup of coffee for the day cooling beside my notebook.“Tell me you’re sitting down,” Claire says by way of hello.“I’m sitting.”“I pulled the last few tax filings for that charity you flagged. The one that went belly-up two years ago? Guess what’s buried in the final quarter before it closed?”I click my pencil. “Surprise me.”“Offshore transfers. Big ones. And before you ask, yes, they’re routed through an account owned by Marrin’s old company. I checked twice.”That snaps me fully awake. Marrin again. He’s like mildew, once you see him, you start spotting him everywhere. “Destination?”“Three different shell entities. Two in the Caymans, one in Panama. All dissolved within six months of the transfers. No surviving records I can get to without a warrant.”Which neither of us will ever have, and I’m not stupid enough to fake one.“Send me what you can,” I say.“Already in your inbox. And, Sophia? You’re getting close. Just… be careful
Undercover Hearts Chapter 81 – Pressure Points
MarcusPemberton’s file has been combed over so many times the metadata practically squeaks it’s so clean. So imagine my shock when I actually find something.A supplemental memo, dated less than two weeks before his death. It’s short, only two paragraphs, both maddeningly vague, about “coordination with external consultants for discrete asset management.”That’s Bureau-speak for moving something without a paper trail. Could be cash. Could be favors. Could be both.There’s no invoice, no contact sheet, just a redacted name where a company should be. But the phrasing is familiar enough that my gut says Bainbridge.I pull up Liberty-Anne’s calendar for the same period. She canceled a lunch meeting the day before that memo was filed. The guest field is blank. Scrubbed clean, not left empty. Whoever she was meeting, someone didn’t want it to be recorded.The three-day gap in Pemberton’s financial records is still there, glaring like a missing tooth. If someone moved cash in that window,
Undercover Hearts Chapter 80 – Fracture Lines
MarcusGillespie calls first thing in the morning. I’m halfway through a mug of black coffee, scrolling the day’s reports, when her name flashes across my screen.“Bainbridge’s lawyers are sniffing around Marrin’s associates,” she says, no hello. “Old business partners. College friends. That guy who was on the board with him for five minutes.”“That’s not their usual play,” I say, setting the mug down. “They’re nervous.”“That’s one interpretation.”“It’s the right one,” I counter. “If they’re rattled, we press harder. Go for the weak link. There’s a reason they’re doing damage control now.”She exhales like I’m the problem, not Bainbridge’s PR machine. “Rodriguez wants us to sit tight. No sudden moves.”“That’s bullshit.”“It’s an order,” she says, and I can hear the thin thread of patience fraying in her voice. “Something you suddenly seem to have a problem with. You’ve been told to stand down before. I’m telling you again. Do not freelance this, Marcus. Do not make me write that
Undercover Hearts Chapter 79 – Echoes in Ink
SophiaThe downtown records office smells like every dusty archive I’ve ever set foot in. Dry paper, stale air, and the faint tang of toner from a printer that probably pre-dates my career. It’s not a place you stumble into by accident. You have to walk through a marble-floored lobby, sign a clipboard, and hand over your ID to a clerk who regards you like you’re here to commit a crime.I’m not even here digitally. Claire’s voice is in my head, warning me again about leaving a trail. This is old-school, analog only.The reading room is chilly, even though it’s late afternoon in August. Rows of beige metal filing cabinets run along the walls, with broad wooden tables in the center under buzzing fluorescent lights.There’s a scattering of other patrons. An older man in a suit paging through property records, a grad student type surrounded by microfiche reels, a woman with a pile of bound ledgers.I head straight for the archive desk, give my request in a low voice. The name of the now-d
Undercover Hearts Chapter 78 – Barely Breathing
SophiaPreston picks the restaurant.It’s a place that’s been on a couple of “Top Ten Date Night” lists in the Tribune lately. Warm lighting, mismatched antique chairs, a bar lined with tiny succulents. It has a waiting list that’s several months long.The hostess greets him by name and leads us to a table near the window, where lights from the street tangle in the glass like tiny constellations.He holds my chair out for me. “Shall I order us some wine?”I smile, the automatic kind you pull out when someone’s being perfectly lovely. “That would be lovely.”He orders a bottle of something red I’ve never heard of but will probably like. He’s good at that. Making small decisions without making them feel like control. It’s one of the things I told myself I wanted in a relationship.Something steady.Something safe.Someone steady.Someone safe.The conversation is easy in the way it always is with Preston. He tells me about a gallery opening he’s sponsoring next week, which will featu
Undercover Hearts Chapter 77 – Contingencies
MarcusThe Bureau’s archive server isn’t a place most people just… wander into. It’s built to repel casual curiosity. Layer after layer of log-ins, authorizations and encryption. Gillespie didn’t give me clearance for this. Which is why I’m doing it from the small, dim corner of my home office at two in the morning, with the lights off and the blinds shut.The glow from the monitor is the only illumination, blue-white and sterile against the black around me. It’s like sitting inside a fish tank.Pemberton’s file comes up in segmented bursts, as if the system itself is reluctant to hand it over. Decades of wealth, and more quiet manipulations than any one man should have time for. It’s all here. Bank statements, property deeds, transfers, shell companies with charmingly generic names.I scroll through the financial records the week before his death. Each line item is like a heartbeat, steady and predictable. Until it isn’t.For three days there’s suddenly nothing.Not a single transa
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