Chapter 5 - The DriveFor the first time since I collapsed, fear became larger than anger.
It could have been a witness.
A contact.
Someone Rebecca planned to question.
But forensic accounting had taught me not to fall in love with innocent explanations.
Evidence first.
Emotion second.
Detective Torres immediately asked Elaine to come to the hospital.
She arrived forty minutes later.
The moment Torres placed Rebecca’s notebook on the table, Elaine’s composure changed.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
Her fingers stopped moving.
“You recognize it?” Torres asked.
Elaine looked at me.
“Where did you get that?”
“Answer her,” Ethan said.
Elaine turned toward him.
She knew exactly who he was.
“I’m sorry about your sister.”
His expression hardened.
“You don’t get to lead with that.”
Torres interrupted.
“Why is your name in Rebecca Cole’s notebook?”
Elaine lowered herself into a chair.
“Because I helped her.”
Nobody expected that.
“Explain,” I said.
“Five years ago, Rebecca came to me with concerns about Northlake. Victor was already powerful. He chaired the risk committee, controlled several senior partners, and had cultivated relationships across the board.”
“You were on that board.”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you stop him?”
“Because Rebecca had suspicions, not proof.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“She ended up dead.”
Elaine looked at him.
“And I have lived with that every day.”
She said Rebecca believed Northlake was being used to extract money from acquisitions before closing. Elaine advised her to gather hard evidence.
“Then Rebecca collapsed.”
“And you said nothing?” I demanded.
“I asked questions.”
“Quietly.”
“Yes.”
“You protected your company.”
“I protected three thousand employees from an allegation I couldn’t prove.”
“No. You protected yourself from having to choose.”
The words hurt her.
Good.
Some truths should.
Torres asked whether she knew Dr. Rusk.
“Victor introduced him.”
“Did you know Bellweather?”
“No.”
“Did you know Rebecca had been medically evaluated before she died?”
Elaine’s face changed.
“What?”
Ethan stepped closer.
“She had headaches.”
He looked at me.
“Like you.”
Elaine closed her eyes.
Rebecca’s official cause of death had been cardiac arrest caused by an undiagnosed arrhythmia.
No toxicology test had looked for clenbuterol.
Why would it?
Her death had looked natural.
Until mine didn’t.
Torres left immediately to request an exhumation order.
That evening, I was discharged.
Owen refused to let me stay alone.
Ethan insisted on driving us.
We stopped at my apartment just after eight.
The door was open.
Not unlocked.
Open.
My stomach dropped.
Ethan held out an arm.
“Stay behind me.”
We called police.
Inside, the place had been torn apart.
Drawers emptied.
Cushions slashed.
My desk overturned.
But the television remained.
My jewelry remained.
So did cash in a kitchen drawer.
They weren’t robbing me.
They were searching.
Detective Torres arrived and walked slowly through the damage.
“What did you keep here?”
“Personal records.”
“Company documents?”
“Backups.”
“Anything unique?”
I looked at Ethan.
Rebecca’s notebook was still with police.
“No.”
Then I remembered.
There was one thing.
Six months ago, during my initial Northlake review, I had downloaded a raw server archive onto an external SSD because the company database kept timing out.
I had forgotten about it.
The drive was hidden inside an old shoebox in my bedroom closet.
I pushed past everyone.
The shoebox was gone.
“Someone knew,” Owen said.
“Someone knew exactly where to look.”
Only one person at work knew I had made that backup.
My closest friend at the company.
Jennifer Park.
She had been standing near me when I collapsed.
She was also the woman who had tried to touch my shoulder before Victor ordered her away.
I called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
Torres immediately dispatched officers to Jennifer’s apartment.
She wasn’t there.
Her phone was off.
Her car was missing.
The next morning, security footage from my building gave us a partial answer.
At 6:12 p.m., someone entered using my building access code.
A man in a baseball cap.
His face remained hidden.
At 6:47, he left carrying the shoebox.
There was no image of Jennifer.
But then Torres discovered my building code had been viewed from a Calder & Finch HR file that afternoon.
One employee had opened it.
Jennifer.
My stomach dropped.
I refused to believe she had betrayed me.
We had worked together for seven years.
She had spent Thanksgiving with my family.
She knew about my father’s death.
I knew about her divorce.
Yet evidence didn’t care about friendship.
At noon, Jennifer finally called.
Her voice was shaking.
“Mara.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I didn’t know they were going to hurt you.”
The room around me went cold.
“Who?”
“I can’t say over the phone.”
“Jennifer, the police are looking for you.”
“I know.”
“Did you give someone my building code?”
Silence.
“Yes.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Why?”
“Victor told me you stole confidential files.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
She started crying.
“Because he had something on me.”
“What?”
“My son.”
Jennifer’s fourteen-year-old son, Caleb, had been arrested months earlier for breaking into a school server as a prank.
Charges had quietly vanished.
Jennifer had told me a family attorney handled it.
She had lied.
Victor handled it.
And kept the evidence.
“He said he could reopen everything,” she whispered. “He said Caleb could lose his scholarship, his school, everything.”
“So you gave him my access code.”
“Yes.”
“Who entered my apartment?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are you now?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because after your collapse, I confronted Victor.”
My anger faltered.
“What did he say?”
“He said you should have listened.”
The room became silent.
Jennifer continued.
“Then he asked whether you kept copies anywhere else. I told him I didn’t know.”
“Jennifer—”
“There’s something else.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“The man who broke into your apartment didn’t get the real drive.”
I sat forward.
“What?”
“I switched it.”
“When?”
“Last week. You left your bag in my office during lunch. I saw the drive. I knew Victor was asking questions, so I replaced it with an empty one.”
“Where is the real one?”
“With me.”
“Bring it to the police.”
“I’m trying.”
Then we heard something over the phone.
A car door.
Jennifer gasped.
“No.”
“What?”
“They found me.”
“Jennifer, where are you?”
She breathed one location.
“Union Station.”
Then the line went dead.
By the time police arrived, Jennifer was gone.
Her car remained in the garage.
The driver’s door was open.
Her purse sat on the passenger seat.
And beneath the windshield wiper, someone had left a folded Calder & Finch letterhead.
May you like
Four words were written across it.
STOP DIGGING OR SHE DIES.
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