Chapter 5 - The First Page
Daniel refused to come to the office.
Not because he feared the archive.
Because he no longer trusted me.
“You knew my biometric data was required before you told me,” he said the next morning.
“I found out at two.”
“And Marcus tried to access it without me?”
“He tried to determine the authentication method.”
“You are opening my father’s records.”
“They are stored on infrastructure my company legally acquired.”
“That does not make them yours.”
“Someone shot through our dining room window because of those records.”
“That does not make them yours either.”
We stood in the kitchen beneath temporary boards covering the shattered glass.
The house smelled of wet stone, dust, and burnt wiring from the damaged chandelier.
Daniel had not slept.
Neither had I.
“The archive may prove your name was used,” I said. “It may clear you.”
“Or implicate me.”
“If it implicates you falsely, we fight it.”
“And if it does not?”
I hesitated.
His face hardened.
“That’s what I thought.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you believe me.”
“I believe you did not knowingly participate in your father’s crimes.”
“Careful wording.”
“It is honest wording.”
He picked up his car keys.
“I’m staying at the hospital apartment.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel, leaving now makes us easier to isolate.”
“Maybe I need to be isolated from you.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
He left.
At the office, Marcus and my chief technology officer, Priya Shah, waited in the secure server room.
Priya had isolated the Halcyon directory from the rest of the network.
“It was designed to remain dormant,” she explained. “No indexing, no automated backup, no standard access logs.”
“How did we find it?”
“The bullet card contained a sequence of numbers. Marcus thought they might be coordinates or an account key. They matched a hidden partition identifier.”
“So Silas wanted us to find it.”
“Or wanted to know whether we could,” Marcus said.
A biometric panel appeared on the screen.
It requested Daniel’s right palm, voice sample, and retinal scan.
“Three factors,” I said.
Priya nodded.
“Someone expected him to be physically present.”
“Can it be bypassed?”
“Eventually.”
“How long?”
“Days, weeks, perhaps never without damaging the archive.”
Marcus leaned against the console.
“Daniel is the cleanest path.”
“He won’t come.”
“Then we need to convince him.”
I stared at the screen.
The first page Evelyn had mentioned waited somewhere behind that encryption.
Daniel’s name was supposedly on it.
But why would Silas need the archive if he had helped create it?
Unless the archive contained something even he did not possess.
At noon, Detective Ortiz called.
Evelyn had been released pending further investigation.
The prosecutor argued that the recording alone did not prove an active murder attempt, particularly because no fire had occurred and the identity of the second speaker remained officially unverified.
I nearly crushed the phone.
“She admitted the plan.”
“She described a coercion scheme,” Ortiz said. “Her attorney now claims she fabricated details under emotional pressure.”
“She asked to speak without an attorney.”
“She changed her mind.”
“Where is she?”
“Not at her apartment.”
“Then where?”
“We don’t know.”
I looked at Marcus.
“Silas has her.”
Ortiz heard me.
“That is one possibility.”
“What is another?”
“She ran.”
Evelyn did neither.
At 1:17 p.m., she entered the lobby of my company headquarters.
Security stopped her at the turnstiles.
She carried no bag.
No phone.
No coat.
Only the black notebook I had seen in my bedroom.
I met her in a glass conference room with Marcus standing outside the door.
Evelyn placed the notebook on the table.
“Daniel is in danger.”
“That has been true since you involved him.”
“I involved him the day Arthur died.”
“What does that mean?”
She opened the notebook.
The pages were not measurements.
They were coded records.
Dates, initials, transaction amounts, locations, and symbols.
“I kept my own copy of Arthur’s movements,” she said. “I knew he was hiding money. I did not know for whom.”
“Why measure my bedroom?”
“I needed to know whether Silas’s plan could be interrupted.”
“You deleted the footage.”
“Yes.”
“You brought gasoline onto my property.”
“No.”
“The man you met did.”
“He was not working for me.”
“Who was he?”
“A former Halcyon courier named Owen Rusk.”
“Why did you meet him?”
“He contacted me two months ago. He said Silas intended to kill you whether I cooperated or not.”
“And you believed him?”
“I watched Silas order Arthur’s death.”
The room seemed to narrow.
“You said Arthur died in a hotel.”
“He did.”
“Daniel believes it was a heart attack.”
“It was made to look like one.”
“Who killed him?”
“Owen.”
I looked through the glass at Marcus.
He was already searching the name.
“Why would his killer warn you?”
“Because Owen has been hiding from Silas for twenty years.”
“Why return now?”
“He believes the archive contains evidence that can destroy Silas.”
“And he gave you gasoline?”
“No. He carried a red container because he knew the cameras would see it.”
I stared at her.
“He wanted to frighten me.”
“He wanted to force me to tell you enough to open the archive.”
“That is an extraordinary explanation.”
“He knew I would never approach you willingly.”
“So he staged suspicious behavior.”
“He understands me.”
“Apparently better than your son does.”
Pain crossed her face.
It vanished quickly.
I turned the notebook toward me.
“What is on the first page of the archive?”
“A list of legal identities used to move Halcyon funds.”
“Daniel’s name?”
“Yes.”
“Was he involved?”
“No.”
“Can you prove it?”
“The archive can.”
“Then why did you warn him not to open it?”
“Because his name is not the only one.”
“Whose else?”
She closed the notebook.
“I will tell you after Daniel is protected.”
“I am finished trading information.”
“You think you control this because you control the servers.”
“I control who enters this building.”
“Silas entered years ago.”
She pointed toward the ceiling.
“He has someone near you. Someone senior enough to access Northbridge acquisition files before the purchase closed.”
“Names.”
“I do not know.”
“You know more than you are saying.”
“So do you.”
“What am I hiding?”
“The reason you purchased Northbridge.”
“It was a strategic acquisition.”
“That is what your board believes.”
“That is the truth.”
Evelyn studied me.
“Then why did your father meet Arthur three weeks before he died?”
I stopped breathing for a moment.
“My father?”
“Richard Beaumont.”
“My father had no connection to Halcyon.”
“Your father funded it.”
“That is impossible.”
“He was Arthur’s largest private client.”
I stood.
“My father died twelve years ago.”
“Yes.”
“He built manufacturing companies.”
“He built them using money Arthur moved.”
“You are lying.”
Evelyn opened the notebook again and turned to a page marked with the initials R.B.
Beside them was a series of transfers totaling eighty-seven million dollars.
At the bottom, Arthur had written a note she had copied by hand.
RICHARD DEMANDS ORIGINAL LEDGER. REFUSES VANE’S TERMS.
“What terms?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why would my father want the ledger?”
“Perhaps he planned to expose Halcyon.”
“Or perhaps he owned it.”
Evelyn said nothing.
My phone rang.
Daniel.
I answered immediately.
His breathing was uneven.
“Claire.”
“Where are you?”
“At the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“A package was delivered to my office.”
“What package?”
He did not answer.
“Daniel?”
“It contains my father’s watch.”
Evelyn stood.
Daniel continued.
“And a photograph of you sleeping.”
My skin turned cold.
“When was it taken?”
“Last night.”
I looked toward the conference room glass.
Evelyn followed my gaze.
May you like
Daniel’s next words came in a whisper.
“Claire, someone was standing beside our bed.”
