Chapter 4 - The Missing Drive
A week later, Sarah returned from a medical appointment and found the garage door partly open.
Her suitcase had been moved.
The blanket had been thrown onto the floor.
One of her encrypted storage drives was missing.
Sarah entered the house through the kitchen and found Chloe arranging gold decorations across the dining table.
“Where is it?”
Chloe did not look up.
“Where is what?”
“The black drive from my laptop case.”
“I haven’t been in the garage.”
Sarah turned to Ryan, who was standing near the refrigerator.
He raised both hands.
“Don’t look at me.”
“That drive contains confidential information.”
Ryan laughed.
“You’re living in your parents’ garage and wearing the same sweater every day. Stop pretending you work for the Pentagon.”
Sarah walked toward him.
“Give it back.”
George entered the kitchen.
“What is all this shouting?”
“Someone searched my belongings.”
George’s face hardened.
“This is our house. Nothing inside it is beyond our reach.”
“My husband’s military records are.”
“Daniel was our son-in-law.”
“That does not make his files yours.”
Linda came downstairs holding the missing drive between two fingers.
“I found this under your pillow,” she said.
Sarah stared at her mother.
“You searched my bed?”
“I was cleaning.”
“You haven’t entered the garage once to clean.”
Linda placed the drive on the table.
“I wanted to know whether you were hiding financial documents.”
The truth finally surfaced.
They believed Daniel had left Sarah more money than she admitted.
George demanded access to her accounts. Chloe argued that Sarah owed the family repayment for food, electricity, and housing.
Sarah looked around the mansion where she had grown up.
Her childhood photographs still hung along the staircase. Her graduation picture sat beside Chloe’s wedding portrait.
Yet she felt like a stranger surrounded by people negotiating the price of her suffering.
“The insurance money belongs to my child,” Sarah said.
“You are our child,” Linda replied. “What belongs to you belongs to this family.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
George slammed his palm on the table.
“As long as you live under my roof, you will respect my rules.”
Sarah glanced through the window toward the garage.
“Your roof doesn’t cover where I sleep.”
For the first time, George looked ashamed.
But Chloe quickly stepped between them.
“Then leave.”
Sarah looked at her younger sister.
Chloe crossed her arms.
“If it’s so terrible here, leave.”
Sarah wanted to answer that she had nowhere else to go.
Instead, she picked up the storage drive and returned to the garage.
That evening, she contacted Colonel Hayes.
“I need Guardian moved to a secure server,” she said.
“Are you ready to submit it?”
“Not yet.”
“Then what changed?”
Sarah looked at the locked door.
“I discovered the biggest security weakness isn’t always technology.”
May you like
“What is it?”
“Trusting the wrong family.”
