“We have an active insider threat,” Arthur said. “Lucas Miller is attempting to drain the Sterling escrow account. We have his wife and the victim of his identity theft here with us.”

Arthur explained the situation quickly and clearly, his voice steady.

The man on the other end, introduced as Marcus Reed from the bank’s security team, listened without interrupting.

“Here’s what we can do,” Reed said through the speaker. “We can place a digital hold on the transfer request. To Lucas, it will look like the transaction is ‘pending’ or ‘in progress.’ But we will reroute the funds to a secure holding ledger before they hit the offshore routing number.”

“Will he know?” I asked, leaning closer to the phone.

“No,” Reed said. “To his terminal, it will show a standard processing delay. Most high-value international wires take up to four hours. He won’t suspect a thing until it’s too late.”

“And the police?” I asked.

“I’m patching in Detective Harris from the financial crimes unit,” Reed said. “He’s been briefed on the identity theft complaint Melanie filed yesterday.”