Page 94 of The Voicemail

Her eyebrows lift.

I hear myself and correct it. “Please.”

“Say it again. I want to watch what it costs you.”

“Please.” I can’t help but smile at her cheekiness.

She comes in, slow and careful, and lowers herself into the chair near the window instead of the bed. I don’t comment on it. I also don’t help, even though every instinct in me hates watching her wince through the movement.

That’s the deal now. Not the whole deal, but a piece of it. She gets to struggle with a chair if she wants to.

Luca puts the file in my hands forty-two minutes later.

Elena is asleep by then. She fell asleep in the chair with one hand tucked near her stomach, and I carried her back to bed only after she started sliding sideways and nearly took the lamp with her.

I leave her with a guard outside the bedroom, Maya two doors down. Then I take the file to the dining table.

It’s a plain brown legal folder with a bent corner and a Bellamy Fine Art receiving sticker half peeled off the back. It looks ordinary.

Men like Bianchi don’t hide their sins in locked boxes marked evidence. They bury them in invoices, condition reports, storage forms, customs stamps, and the kind of paperwork rich people assume no one will be rude enough to read.

I read every page. So does Luca. By five in the morning, we understand why he was so hell bent on finding Elena. The information in this folder could bring down his entire organization for good.

Shipping codes. Wire transfers. Insurance values that don’t match sale values. Photographs of paintings that moved more money than canvas. Storage accounts under shell companies. Customs releases signed by men who should have known better.

Bellamy’s name appears three times. Claire Bell’s appears once. Her name is attached to a condition report for a Marchesi shipment, initialed beside an amendment that should not exist.

Luca sees it when I do.

“That’s why they took her,” he says.

I turn the page.

The amendment is small. Three lines, tucked beneath a block of formal language about canvas condition and transport humidity. A crate was opened, resealed, and moved to secondary storage before official intake. Claire initialed the form. Bellamy signed the release.

“She saw the crate had been opened,” I say.

“And Bellamy signed off on moving it anyway.”

“Yes.”

Luca’s jaw tightens. “Claire may not have understood what she saw.”

“Bianchi didn’t know that. Look what he did when he thought Elena took this file.”

“Well, he was right in her case.”

“Did we ever find Claire?” I ask.

“Not yet.”

“Find her.”

He nods once and starts typing. I keep reading. Bellamy’s signatures come easier after that. I know what to look for now. He was careful, but not careful enough. He didn’t build Bianchi’s operation. In a way, he did something worse. He let his gallery be used because it paid well, and because asking questions would have made him responsible for the answers.

At five thirty, I have Julian Bellamy dragged out of his townhouse and brought to his own gallery. I don’t go in through the front.

When Bellamy Fine Art turns on its lights for me, the street outside is still dark and wet from overnight rain. My men lock the doors behind us. Marco checks the back hall. Luca takes the office computer. Bellamy stands near the reception desk in a coat pulled over his pajamas, trying to look offended instead of afraid.