Chapter 9 - THE FIRE IN THE GLASS ROOM
The building’s emergency alarms did not activate.
That told Torres the fire was deliberate before she ever saw flames.
Daniel smashed one of the conference room windows using a metal chair.
The fire below blocked the main stairs.
Raymond found an old maintenance shaft behind the copy room.
Emily went first.
Daniel lowered her into darkness.
They descended three floors before smoke entered the shaft.
On the eighteenth floor, Torres kicked open an access panel.
They escaped minutes before the twenty-first floor exploded.
Grace’s laptop was gone.
Emily had grabbed it before leaving.
But heat damaged the hard drive.
Three days of forensic work recovered fragments.
Enough to make everything worse.
Grace had documented illegal surveillance.
Blackmail.
Fake charitable grants.
Offshore transfers.
Private information stolen from hotel guests.
Victor Sloane appeared throughout the records.
So did Lydia.
So did Raymond.
But only one person’s credentials appeared in every major transaction.
Daniel Blackwood.
“It’s forged,” Daniel said.
Torres did not disagree.
She also could not prove it.
Meanwhile the press learned about the hotel incident.
A photograph of Emily sitting beside the broken violin spread across the country.
Public outrage followed.
Preston Vale was formally charged.
The Grand Halcyon suspended senior staff.
But beneath the public story was a war nobody outside the family understood.
Someone tried to kill Emily twice in forty-eight hours.
Daniel moved her to a secure lake house.
Lydia came that evening.
Emily had not seen her since learning about Thomas Mercer.
Lydia stood outside for ten minutes before Daniel allowed her inside.
“You think it was me,” Lydia said.
Daniel said nothing.
“I loved Grace.”
“So did I.”
“And she investigated you too.”
“Apparently.”
Emily watched them.
“Why did Grandpa Charles think one of you was involved?”
Lydia looked toward the fireplace.
“Because he didn’t trust either of us.”
“That isn’t true,” Daniel said.
“Not after Mom died.”
Emily knew almost nothing about Daniel’s mother.
She had died when Daniel and Lydia were teenagers.
Lydia continued.
“Our mother found financial irregularities in Dad’s first company.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked.”
“What happened?”
“Her car went off a bridge.”
The room became still.
Emily whispered.
“Another car accident.”
Lydia nodded.
“Dad believed it was murder.”
Daniel looked stunned.
“He told me she lost control.”
“He lied.”
The pattern was suddenly terrifying.
Two Blackwood women.
Two investigations.
Two car crashes.
Emily looked toward Daniel.
“Mom found the same thing Grandma found.”
Lydia nodded.
“Something that survived for decades.”
A system.
Not one person.
Victor Sloane had not started it.
Someone before him had.
Perhaps Charles.
Perhaps someone Charles tried to stop.
Torres arrived with another recovered file from Grace’s laptop.
A photograph.
It showed Lydia entering a bank in Zurich.
Date stamped six days after Grace died.
Daniel turned the screen toward his sister.
“What were you doing there?”
Lydia stared.
Then whispered.
“Saving Emily’s life.”
She explained that Grace had transferred the eleven million dollars to an encrypted reserve account.
Lydia had moved it again after Grace died.
“Why?”
“Because someone was hunting it.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is getting old.”
Lydia opened her purse.
Daniel reached for it.
She stopped him.
Then removed a key.
Not the brass endpin key.
A larger black keycard.
“I found this in Grace’s coat after the funeral.”
Emily stared.
“You kept it?”
“For three years.”
“What does it open?”
“I never knew.”
Emily looked closer.
A faint silver logo was visible.
Blackwood Systems.
The original logo used before Daniel became CEO.
Daniel recognized the format.
“Data vault.”
“Where?”
“Only my father knew.”
Then the house lights went out.
Raymond immediately drew his weapon.
A generator activated seconds later.
One monitor remained black.
The perimeter camera.
Someone had cut the line.
Jonah’s voice came through the radio.
“Vehicle approaching north gate.”
Daniel looked toward Lydia.
“Who knows we’re here?”
“Your security.”
Raymond answered.
“Six people.”
The vehicle stopped.
A man stepped out.
Victor Sloane.
He raised both hands.
“Don’t shoot.”
Daniel met him outside.
Victor was terrified.
“They know you found the key.”
“What key?”
“The vault.”
Daniel froze.
Victor looked toward Emily through the window.
“Grace didn’t build that evidence archive.”
“Who did?”
Victor swallowed.
“Your mother.”
Daniel stared at him.
Victor continued.
“She was the first person who discovered what Blackwood Systems was really being used for.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“My mother died twenty-seven years ago.”
May you like
Victor nodded.
“And the people who killed her are still inside your company.”
