Chapter 8 - The Night ShiftSamuel Ortega was driving a forklift when I met him.
That was the first thing she said when we brought her to Thomas’s office.
“I’m not here for the estate.”
Nobody had asked.
She seemed to know we would wonder.
“I own a flower shop in Annapolis. My husband teaches high school. We’re fine.”
She twisted a tissue between her fingers.
“I came because I saw the funeral on television.”
I sat across from her.
“Why didn’t Nathan know about you?”
“He did once.”
Thomas closed the conference-room door.
Laura told us everything.
She and Nathan shared the same mother.
Richard was their father’s son from a later marriage.
When Nathan was twenty-seven, their mother died.
Laura was twenty-three and newly married.
The siblings remained close.
Then came a dispute over company shares.
James Reed—Nathan’s father—wanted Nathan to control the company.
Richard wanted equal authority.
Laura wanted nothing to do with the business.
“I hated what it did to them,” she said.
One year later, Laura’s husband received a job opportunity in Europe.
They moved overseas temporarily.
During that time, several things happened.
Nathan received letters supposedly from Laura accusing him of becoming obsessed with money.
Laura received emails supposedly from Nathan telling her he wanted nothing to do with her.
Phone numbers changed.
Addresses changed.
Eventually, both believed the other had ended the relationship.
“Why didn’t you just call?” I asked.
“I tried.”
Her eyes filled.
“Richard always answered the office numbers. Nathan changed personal assistants constantly. Then he became almost impossible to reach.”
That seemed hard to believe.
Twenty-two years?
No contact?
Then Laura showed us printed emails.
Thomas read them.
His expression darkened.
“These headers look manipulated.”
“They were.”
“How do you know?”
“Because three years ago my daughter, Sophie, became a cybersecurity analyst.”
Laura gave a sad smile.
“She decided she was tired of hearing family stories that made no sense.”
Sophie investigated archived accounts.
She discovered forwarding rules.
Spoofed addresses.
Old company domains controlled by Reed Industries servers.
Someone had intercepted messages between Nathan and Laura.
They believed it was Richard.
“Why didn’t you contact Nathan then?”
“We tried.”
Laura looked down.
“That was when we learned he was sick.”
“What happened?”
“We sent letters.”
None were answered.
“We contacted the company.”
Calls were screened.
“We finally hired a private investigator.”
He found Nathan’s Virginia address.
Laura drove there.
Six months before I met him.
She never reached the door.
Two men stopped her.
Security.
“They said Nathan had requested no family contact.”
Thomas swore under his breath.
“Did you ask who gave that order?”
“They said Mr. Reed.”
There were two Mr. Reeds.
Nathan.
Richard.
I understood instantly.
“You thought Nathan rejected you.”
Laura nodded.
“And Nathan probably thought you had stopped trying.”
She began crying.
I moved around the table and hugged her.
She collapsed against me.
“I would have been there.”
Her voice broke.
“If I had known he was dying alone, I would have been there every day.”
My heart shattered.
Because I knew Nathan.
I knew the nights he stared at the ceiling.
The birthdays he pretended did not matter.
The empty house.
The sentence he repeated before our wedding:
I don’t want to die alone.
And somewhere less than two hours away, his sister had believed he wanted nothing to do with her.
That was not business rivalry.
That was cruelty.
Thomas began investigating immediately.
By evening, Sophie arrived.
She was thirty-one, with dark hair and Nathan’s gray eyes.
The resemblance stopped me.
Sophie stopped too.
“You must be Claire.”
“Yes.”
She hugged me without warning.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For loving him.”
I cried again.
Apparently grief contained an endless supply of tears.
Sophie spent hours with forensic specialists examining old emails and company systems.
Around midnight she found something.
“This account.”
She turned the monitor.
“It was the administrator account controlling Nathan’s private correspondence filters.”
“Who owned it?” Thomas asked.
“Technically, executive IT.”
“Who authorized access?”
Sophie clicked.
A name appeared.
Martin Kellerman.
Reed Industries chief financial officer.
Richard’s closest ally.
Thomas went silent.
“That’s bad.”
“For whom?” I asked.
“For Richard, eventually.”
Thomas leaned toward the screen.
“But for us immediately.”
“Why?”
“Kellerman controls financial reporting.”
The stock drop.
The bank panic.
The debt crisis.
I understood.
“You think they manufactured the emergency.”
Sophie looked at Thomas.
“Can they do that?”
“Not legally.”
Thomas reached for his phone.
At that exact moment, mine rang.
Unknown number.
Security traced all calls, but something made me answer.
“Hello?”
A man whispered.
“Mrs. Reed?”
“Yes?”
“My name is Daniel Cho. I’m vice president of treasury at Reed Industries.”
Thomas motioned for speakerphone.
I activated it.
Daniel continued.
“I think the company is being robbed.”
Nobody moved.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Money has been transferred out of two reserve accounts.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred and eighty million dollars.”
My stomach turned.
“Where did it go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Thomas leaned toward the phone.
“This is Thomas Mercer. Do not discuss this on a company line.”
Daniel went quiet.
Then whispered, “Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank God.”
His voice shook.
“I tried contacting Nathan three months ago.”
My chest tightened.
“About what?”
“The transfers.”
“Did he respond?”
“No.”
“Who intercepted your request?” Thomas asked.
“I don’t know.”
Thomas and Sophie looked at each other.
I knew what both were thinking.
Maybe Richard had intercepted more than family letters.
Maybe he had controlled what reached Nathan throughout his illness.
Daniel continued.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The reserve accounts were connected to Horizon.”
Every person in the room froze.
I asked, “Can Richard take the money?”
“Not after final activation.”
“When is that?”
“Thirty-seven days.”
There it was.
The clock.
Nathan’s ninety days.
Not sentimental.
Not arbitrary.
He knew.
Richard had thirty-seven days before nearly half a billion dollars—and perhaps much more—became untouchable.
Thomas stood.
“We need federal investigators.”
I looked at him.
“Will that stop the board vote?”
“No.”
“When is it?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Sophie turned from the computer.
“And Richard still has enough directors to win.”
“How many?”
“Possibly.”
“Then what do we need?”
“One more vote.”
“Whose?”
Thomas looked uncomfortable.
“Nathan created a special independent employee seat years ago.”
“Who controls it?”
“The longest-serving qualified employee elected by the pension committee.”
“Who is that?”
Thomas checked.
His eyebrows rose.
“You’re not going to believe this.”
“Try me.”
He turned the screen.
Samuel Ortega.
Night-shift warehouse supervisor.
Forty-one years with Reed Industries.
Current location:
Baltimore distribution center.
I grabbed my coat.
Thomas stared at me.
“Where are you going?”
“To work.”
“At midnight?”
I looked at Nathan’s photograph.
“They built everything people think I built.”
May you like
If Nathan trusted the workers enough to protect them, then I was done listening only to lawyers and billionaires.
“Take me to Baltimore.”
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