Chapter 2 - THE ACCOMPLICE IN THE KITCHENThe heavy pounding on the front oak doors echoed through the hollow corridors like the beats of a war drum.
"Miami Police Department! Open up!"
My knees trembled. The air in the guest room suddenly felt thin, suffocating, poisoned by betrayal. I looked down at the folder in my hands—the signatures, the offshore account transfers, the wire confirmations routed directly through Swiss banks to an account bearing Vanessa’s maiden name. And right beneath hers, the signature of Harold Bennett.
"Rosa, what is happening?" I stammered, panic gripping my throat. "They'll think we did it. They'll think I hid this money! They'll say I staged my own bankruptcy to evade federal fraud charges!"
Rosa didn't flinch. She stripped off her rubber gloves, folded them neatly, and placed them on a corner of the bed stacked with fifty-thousand-dollar cash bundles.
"Let them look, Mr. Calloway," Rosa said, her voice cutting through the rising hysteria with the sharpness of a diamond cutter. "For fifteen years, they treated you like the king of a castle they planned to burn down. Now, let's see how they handle the smoke."
More heavy banging rattled the front hinges. Downstairs, the glass sidelights shattered as an officer forced the lock.
"Federal agents and Miami PD! Clear every room!"
Rosa grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong for a woman who spent her days scrubbing floors. She pushed me toward the secret corridor hidden behind the walk-in library shelf in the adjacent guest study—a relic of the bootlegging era when the mansion was built in the 1920s.
"Take the laptop, the backup drive, and the ledger marked Project Titan," Rosa commanded, shoving a leather satchel into my chest. "Go to the safe house on Biscayne Bay. Address is on the back of the ledger."
"And you?" I asked, horror-struck. "I'm not leaving you here to take the fall!"
"They aren't here for the housekeeper, Edward," she whispered, her eyes flashing with a fierce, cold intelligence I had never seen before. "They're here because Harold Bennett called them the second he realized his decoy note didn't keep you away long enough. Go."
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Before I could argue, heavy boots thundered up the staircase. The study door burst open.
"Freeze! Don't move!"
