Chapter 6: The Controller's Key

I went in, wearing his shirt and nothing else, and sat in the leather chair that faced the door.

The green lamp was on. His phone lay face down on the blotter.

"Who was it?" I said.

"My lawyer." Rowan sat on the desk, in trousers, barefoot, tired. "I told him the accountant doesn't know anything yet."

"What accountant?"

He looked at me for a while.

"I hired a forensic accountant two weeks ago," he said. "A woman who reads books for a living.

I sent her into the Terminal's ledgers because Lionel's numbers stopped adding up."

"Without telling your board."

"Especially without telling my board."

"Why didn't you tell me last night?"

"Because last night you told me my name was on your list," said Rowan.

"I wanted to see what you'd do with the rest of it."

"And?"

"You went to bed with me," he said, deadpan. "I'm still deciding what that means for the investigation."

I threw his own mints at him. He caught them one-handed.

"The controller," I said. "Was he talking to her?"

"He was due to see her Monday morning at seven. He'd called to say he had something to show her."

That was a better reason to kill a man than any I'd had so far.

"Then we go to his apartment," I said. "Before anyone else does. Before it gets cleaned."

"It's five in the morning."

"Which is when people don't look."

He sighed, stood, and picked up my glasses off the desk.

"They're clear," he said. "They've never had a lens."

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