Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE HAD ANOTHER SPY
Grant’s board attack should have been confidential.
Yet a financial reporter called Adrian before breakfast.
Someone inside Cole Systems was leaking.
Diane narrowed the possible sources.
Twelve board members.
Seven senior executives.
Four attorneys.
Then Adrian received an anonymous email.
Stop looking backward if you want the girl safe.
Attached was a photograph.
Emma leaving her aunt’s apartment.
Adrian’s blood went cold.
He called Emma immediately.
“Where are you?”
“At school with Lily.”
“Stay there.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Adrian.”
He sent the photograph.
Emma went silent.
Then:
“I’m coming to the office.”
“No.”
“If someone is following me, hiding won’t make the evidence disappear.”
“You’re not evidence.”
“I know.”
Her voice hardened.
“I’m a person. Start treating me like one.”
That stopped him.
An hour later, Emma arrived through the secure garage.
Marcus escorted her.
They reviewed the image metadata.
Stripped.
No location.
No device.
Professional surveillance.
Grant?
Likely.
But something bothered Marcus.
“The angle.”
“What?”
“This was taken from inside a restricted parking area.”
“Who has access?”
“Cole Systems executives.”
The spy was closer than they thought.
Diane began reviewing access records.
One executive had entered the garage that morning without a scheduled meeting.
Owen Price.
Chief Financial Officer.
Adrian had known Owen for eleven years.
He had attended Caroline’s funeral.
Brought Lily birthday gifts.
Held Adrian’s company together during its worst recession.
Impossible.
Which meant nothing anymore.
They searched quietly.
Payments appeared.
Not from VantaCore.
From a private equity fund linked to Grant.
Owen had accumulated enormous personal losses through speculative investments.
Grant covered them.
In exchange, Owen supplied board information.
Adrian felt almost numb.
Vanessa.
Howard.
Now Owen.
How many people around him had prices?
Emma saw his face.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Thinking everyone lied.”
“Several did.”
“Several isn’t everyone.”
He looked at her.
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Marcus didn’t.”
“No.”
“Diane didn’t.”
She leaned forward.
“Betrayal makes the honest people disappear if you stare at it too long.”
Adrian remembered that sentence.
At the board meeting, Owen sat three seats away from him.
Calm.
Grant appeared by video.
He presented the security breach as catastrophic incompetence.
Then demanded Adrian temporarily surrender operational control.
Owen seconded the motion.
Adrian let him.
Then Diane stood.
She displayed transfer records.
Messages.
Access logs.
The room changed.
Owen went pale.
Grant disconnected.
Too late.
The evidence was preserved.
The motion died.
Owen resigned before midnight.
Authorities opened formal investigations the next morning.
Grant’s corporate coup had failed.
But the anonymous photograph remained unexplained.
And that evening, someone broke into Emma’s aunt’s house.
They stole only one thing.
Matthew Ryan’s original laptop.
Fortunately…
May you like
Emma had brought the original with her.
The thief stole an empty decoy.
