Chapter 3
Cassian did not confront them yet.
He investigated the trip first.
Claire’s travel records were easier to recover than he expected.
She had been in Halifax for four days.
The official reason was routine.
Rinaldo Marine Logistics had partnerships with several Canadian freight companies, and Claire occasionally reviewed charitable and community programs connected to the ports where the company operated.
Cassian had handled most operational matters.
Claire cared about the legitimate side.
She once told him that if his name was going to appear on warehouses, trucks, and buildings, then something attached to that name should be useful to ordinary people.
Cassian had teased her for being idealistic.
She had answered:
“One of us has to be.”
Now he wished he had listened more carefully.
Rebecca located hotel invoices from Claire’s trip.
Adrian had been there too.
His company card paid for a room in the same hotel.
“Why?” Cassian asked.
Rebecca checked the records.
“Officially? Supplier meetings.”
“He never told me.”
“Would he normally?”
Cassian thought about it.
Probably not.
Adrian was not a Rinaldo. He was Sabine’s older brother and had spent years working in freight procurement before Cassian ever knew either sibling personally.
His company, Vale Strategic Transport, had contracted with several major firms.
Including Rinaldo Marine.
That relationship predated Cassian and Sabine’s romance.
Sabine’s presence was harder to establish.
Her old event-consulting business had paid for a flight to Halifax on the same dates.
That alone meant very little.
Then Rebecca found a hotel conference invoice.
The client name was Vale Strategic Transport.
The contact person listed was Sabine Lane.
Cassian stared at it.
“She used her maiden name then.”
“Yes.”
“So Adrian and Sabine were both there.”
“Yes.”
“With Claire.”
“We know they were in the same hotel.”
Rebecca refused to say more.
Cassian respected that restraint even while hating it.
They interviewed Maria Dorsey, Claire’s former executive assistant.
Maria remembered the trip.
“Mrs. Rinaldo came back upset.”
“About what?”
“She said several shipping vendors were charging the company for services that didn’t make sense.”
Cassian’s expression tightened.
“What vendors?”
“She never told me.”
“Did she mention Adrian?”
Maria shook her head.
Then paused.
“She asked me who originally approved Vale Strategic Transport.”
Cassian looked at Rebecca.
There it was.
Not proof.
But direction.
Maria continued.
“After Halifax, Mrs. Rinaldo asked for three years of procurement records.”
“What happened?”
“I sent them.”
“And?”
“She started reviewing them at home.”
“Did she finish?”
Maria looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t know.”
Claire died in a highway collision six weeks later.
A truck hydroplaned across the median during heavy rain.
The investigation had been exhaustive.
There had been witnesses.
The driver survived.
No one had ever produced evidence suggesting Claire’s death was intentional.
Rebecca said it before Cassian could let grief distort the investigation.
“Do not connect the accident to this without evidence.”
Cassian nodded.
“I’m not.”
But Claire had been investigating Adrian’s company before she died.
Sabine had been in Halifax during the same trip.
May you like
Neither sibling had ever told Cassian.
And now they had tried to fly his daughter back to the exact same city.
