Chapter 10 - LOCKER 318
The locker contained Elise’s supplier ledger, three loose diamonds, a voice recorder, and a sealed birthday card for Lily.
Federal investigators inventoried everything before Daniel touched it.
The ledger connected duplicate provenance marks to twenty-eight North Coast shipments. Each real certified stone entered Aurelia normally. A second, unverified stone then received the same identity and moved through private sales. Profits traveled into consulting firms connected to Malcolm Vane.
One column contained initials: C.H., J.P., M.C., and R.B.
Cassandra Harrison. Jonah Price. Maren Cole. Victoria Blake.
Victoria denied participating in gemstone fraud. She admitted arranging private client appointments under Cassandra’s orders and receiving unusually large commissions. She claimed she never knew the stones carried duplicate marks.
The amounts in the ledger matched deposits into her account.
Her humiliating treatment of Daniel and Lily took on another dimension. Victoria had been trained to remove casual witnesses from displays used for off-book transactions.
She still had chosen cruelty herself.
The recorder held Elise’s voice.
“North Coast is cloning Daniel’s system. Someone inside Aurelia is giving them master access. Robert knows the insurance archive is compromised, but he keeps asking me to wait.”
Robert Harrison closed his eyes when his first name sounded through the speaker.
Elise continued.
“I don’t think he’s stealing. I think he’s protecting Cassandra. That may become the same thing.”
The loose diamonds matched three supposedly destroyed prototypes. One came from Kivu Meridian. Another was synthetic. The third was the genuine Canadian Aurora stone.
The diamond in the necklace was not Elise’s original stone.
Someone had removed the real one, hidden it in the locker, and replaced it with a compromised diamond before returning the necklace to the executive archive.
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Maren signed the locker’s annual payment orders.
She had known where the evidence was for three years.
