Chapter 155
A brick tore through the front plate-glass window. Shards exploded inward, spraying across the marble floor. Screams erupted. Staff ducked and covered their heads.
Jocelyn stood completely still, staring at the jagged hole. Cold city air poured through it. Lying amidst the glass was a red brick with a folded note held in place by a rubber band.
Pay up, thieves.
She looked up at the security camera mounted above the door. Intact.
“Did we get that?” she asked the guard beside her.
“Yes, ma’am. Man in a hoodie. Ran toward 5th Avenue.”
“Call Detective Miller,” she said. Her heart was hammering, but her voice held steady.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Unknown number. But the timing was too precise to leave any doubt.
So sorry to hear about the window. Dangerous neighborhood. You should really consider selling.
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Jocelyn stared at the screen. Aspen had finished her interview, received confirmation from whoever she had hired, and sent this within minutes.
She gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white.
“You want a war, Aspen?” she whispered. “You just threw the first brick.”
Kieran marched into the lobby, his Italian leather shoes crunching over the broken glass still being swept up from the floor.
“Jocelyn!” he called out, his voice carrying across the space. “We need to talk!”
Two security guards stepped forward to intercept him. Jocelyn, who was directing the cleanup crew, turned around and raised one hand.
“It’s all right,” she told the guards. She looked at Kieran. His face was flushed with self-righteous anger. “Not here, Kieran. My office.”
She turned and walked toward the elevators without waiting for him. Kieran followed, fuming.
Inside her office, Kieran shut the door hard enough to make the framed certificates on the wall rattle.
“How could you be so negligent?” he said, pointing at her. “Aspen is devastated. She’s on television right now, in tears, because of your incompetence!”
Jocelyn walked behind her desk and sat down. She did not offer him a chair.
“Aspen is performing, Kieran,” she said. “And you’re the only one who bought a front-row ticket.”
“Don’t deflect!” he snapped. “That violin was worth millions. You ruined a musician’s life. You ruined Aspen’s charity event. You are completely out of control.”
“Zack isn’t a victim,” Jocelyn said. “He’s a gambler.”
She picked up a manila folder from her desk — an anonymous dossier that had appeared in her inbox an hour ago — and slid it across the surface toward him.
“Read it.”
Kieran frowned. He picked it up.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, scanning the pages.
“It doesn’t matter. Zack owes five hundred thousand dollars to loan sharks in Atlantic City. He was going to lose more than his career next week. The insurance payout on that violin is his only exit.”
Kieran flipped through the bank statements. The massive withdrawals. The mounting debts. He tossed the folder back onto her desk.
“Circumstantial,” he muttered. “It doesn’t prove he staged anything. It just proves he has a problem.”
.