Chapter 5 - The Man in Her Office
Vantage Capital's headquarters went into emergency lockdown at 4:17 p.m.
By 4:26, David Halden's access badge had been disabled.
By 4:31, his accounts were frozen.
At 4:38, security discovered his office empty.
His computer was gone.
His personal photographs were gone.
His safe was open.
Inside remained only one envelope.
Sienna arrived shortly after sunset.
She had changed into a black suit.
The cream dress remained sealed in an evidence bag.
Kira followed her into David's office.
Sienna stared at the empty shelves.
Nine years reduced to rectangles of dust.
"How long was he planning this?"
"We don't know."
Sienna opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Sienna recognized the people immediately.
Her father.
Her mother.
And David Halden.
The picture was twenty-four years old.
Sienna had been seven when her parents died.
Officially, their private plane had crashed during a storm over Pennsylvania.
David had never told her he knew them.
On the back of the photograph were six handwritten words.
ASK WHO REALLY FOUNDED VANTAGE CAPITAL.
Sienna read them twice.
Kira watched her.
"Did your parents know David?"
"Apparently."
"Did you?"
"No."
Sienna sat in David's chair.
Vantage had been founded with money from her grandmother's estate.
At least that was what she had always believed.
Her grandmother, Margaret Carter, had raised her after the accident.
Margaret died when Sienna was twenty-two.
Six months later, Sienna used the trust to establish Vantage.
David Halden had been one of the first people she hired.
Or perhaps, she suddenly realized, one of the first people positioned near her.
Kira's phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Sienna.
"We found David."
"Where?"
"He entered Richardson Maritime headquarters forty minutes ago."
"Is he still there?"
"Security doesn't know."
Sienna stood.
Kira grabbed her arm.
"You're not going there."
"Yes, I am."
"This could be a criminal conspiracy."
"It already is."
"Sienna."
She looked at the old photograph again.
"My parents have been dead for twenty-four years."
Kira said nothing.
"And somehow the man who betrayed me today was standing beside them before I ever knew his name."
May you like
She slipped the photograph into her pocket.
"I want to know why."
