Chapter 4 - The Chicago CitadelBy noon, I was safely installed in the penthouse suite of the Palmer House in downtown Chicago, high above the bustling streets of the Loop.
Marcus had set up a temporary war room in the suite’s sprawling conference area. Two associate attorneys from his firm were furiously typing away at laptops, cross-referencing bank routing numbers and reviewing corporate filings related to Carlyle & Associates.
"We caught them with their hand entirely in the cookie jar," Marcus said, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window where I stood looking out over the Chicago skyline. He handed me a cup of black coffee. "Eleanor Carlyle’s shell company was already leveraged to the hilt. If they had successfully acquired your father’s real estate trust tonight, they would have used it to bail out three failing commercial plazas they own on the West Side."
I took a sip of the coffee, feeling the warmth spread through my chest. "So the marriage was never about love, or even just my money. It was a hostile takeover to save their own sinking ship."
"Precisely," Marcus nodded, adjusting his glasses. "Eleanor is a high-society grifter with a history of shady financial maneuvers that went unpunished because her previous husband—your father’s former business associate—died under mysterious financial circumstances five years ago."
My breath hitched. "Are you saying..."
"I'm saying my investigators are currently pulling the coroner's report from that case," Marcus said grimly. "If Eleanor has a pattern of eliminating financial obstacles through staged accidents or manipulated stress, your father's sudden heart attack two years ago suddenly looks a lot less natural."
The room went dead silent. The cold fury that had sustained me through the night flared into a white-hot blaze.
"Find out," I said quietly, my fingers tightening around the coffee ceramic. "Dig up every bank statement, every medical record, and every communication between Eleanor Carlyle and my father during his final months. If they had anything to do with his death, I want them buried beneath a prison so deep they'll never see daylight again."
Before Marcus could answer, his secure satellite phone began to buzz loudly on the conference table.
He answered on the second ring, listening intently as the voice on the other end spoke in rapid, hushed tones. As Marcus listened, his expression shifted from professional calm to utter astonishment.
"Are you certain?" Marcus asked sharply. "Verify the account routing."
He clicked off the phone and looked up at me, his eyes wide.
"That was our asset-recovery specialist tracking Derek’s personal accounts," Marcus said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Ten minutes ago, before the freeze injunction could fully hit their clearinghouse, Derek and Eleanor attempted to execute an emergency wire transfer of two point five million dollars out of a joint escrow account."
"Where did they send it?" I asked.
"They didn't," Marcus said, a slow, grim smile spreading across his face. "The recipient account wasn't an offshore tax haven in the Caymans. It was intercepted by federal marshals. Because the account was flagged under an active FBI white-collar investigation into Carlyle & Associates that started six months ago."
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I blinked in surprise. "The FBI was already investigating them?"
"Long before you ever met Derek at that charity gala," Marcus nodded. "You weren't their target of convenience, Elena. You were their final, desperate lottery ticket to stay out of federal custody."
