Chapter 3 - THE BLUE KEY
No one spoke for several seconds.
Gavin stared at his mother.
“Testify about what?”
Evelyn looked toward Taylor.
The child had become unusually quiet.
Nora understood.
She crouched beside her.
“Sweetheart, why don’t we get some juice?”
Taylor shook her head.
Nora whispered.
“Just for a minute.”
This time Taylor allowed Nora to take her toward the service kitchen.
Before leaving, however, she turned back.
“The blue key.”
Gavin frowned.
“What?”
Taylor pointed toward Priscilla.
“She has the blue key.”
Priscilla went still.
Nora stopped walking.
“What blue key?”
Taylor held two fingers apart.
“Little.”
She pointed toward Priscilla’s clutch bag.
“Blue.”
Priscilla instinctively grabbed the bag.
Gavin noticed.
“So now we’re checking the bag.”
“No.”
Priscilla stepped backward.
“You have gone completely insane.”
Gavin held out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
“This is humiliating.”
“Then leave.”
“You locked the elevators.”
Gavin’s expression hardened.
“You were complaining about staying five minutes ago.”
Priscilla looked toward Eric.
Then Evelyn.
Then Marcus.
Finally, she placed the clutch on the desk.
“Fine.”
Gavin opened it.
Lipstick.
Compact.
Phone.
Cardholder.
A small perfume bottle.
Nothing blue.
Priscilla folded her arms.
“Satisfied?”
Taylor shook her head.
“Inside.”
Gavin looked at the inner zipper.
Priscilla moved.
“Gavin—”
He opened it.
Inside was a tiny blue security key.
About two inches long.
Stamped with the number 17.
Marcus whispered—
“Oh, no.”
Gavin held it up.
“What does this open?”
Priscilla’s eyes shifted toward the office wall.
Only for an instant.
Gavin followed her gaze.
A framed architectural drawing hung behind the bookshelf.
He walked toward it.
Priscilla stepped after him.
“Don’t.”
Gavin removed the frame.
Behind it was a recessed steel panel.
A private document safe.
One he had almost forgotten existed.
His father had installed it when the penthouse was built.
Gavin rarely used it.
He reached for the digital pad.
A red light flashed.
LOCKOUT.
Marcus looked confused.
“Someone changed the access code.”
Gavin looked at the blue key.
Then at the small override slot beneath the keypad.
He inserted it.
Click.
The safe opened.
Priscilla’s shoulders dropped.
Inside were three envelopes.
A burner phone.
A thin notebook.
And an old cassette recorder.
Gavin stared at the objects.
“These weren’t here.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“No.”
Gavin picked up the notebook.
Each page contained dates and initials.
C.A.
P.A.
M.H.
Several payments.
Political organizations.
Consulting firms.
Land purchases.
Then he saw his own initials.
G.R.
Beside them were dates corresponding to important moments in his relationship with Priscilla.
FIRST MEETING.
FIRST TRIP.
PROPOSAL WINDOW.
TRUST REVISION.
MARRIAGE TARGET.
Gavin’s jaw tightened.
He looked at Priscilla.
“What am I looking at?”
She said nothing.
“Was I a project?”
Her lips parted.
Nothing came out.
Gavin held up the notebook.
“You scheduled my proposal?”
“I didn’t write that.”
“Then who did?”
Silence.
Gavin picked up the burner phone.
It had no passcode.
The message history contained only numbers.
He opened the most recent thread.
The last message had been sent that afternoon.
Gavin read it.
TONIGHT HAS TO HOLD.
IF EVELYN APPEARS, REMOVE HER BEFORE GAVIN SEES HER.
His eyes slowly lifted.
Evelyn whispered—
“That’s why the office door was locked.”
Gavin looked at his mother.
“You were locked inside?”
She nodded.
“I entered through the service elevator.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew Priscilla would never let me reach you through the party.”
Priscilla scoffed.
“You walked into his home uninvited.”
Evelyn turned.
“And someone locked me in the office.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
Everyone looked at Marcus.
He raised both hands.
“Not me.”
Gavin checked the burner phone.
Another message.
MARCUS WILL HANDLE THE FINANCIAL SIDE.
P. WILL HANDLE EVELYN.
Gavin’s face hardened.
Another.
GAVIN MUST BELIEVE HIS MOTHER LEAKED THE BENNETT FILE.
Gavin froze.
“The Bennett file?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
He looked at her.
Six months earlier, a confidential acquisition report had been leaked to a newspaper.
The leak cost Roberson Development nearly seventy million dollars.
Someone had sent Gavin screenshots supposedly showing Evelyn forwarding the report to a journalist.
That had been the final blow between mother and son.
Gavin had accused her of sabotage.
Evelyn denied it.
He hadn’t believed her.
Now Gavin searched the burner phone.
He found an image attachment.
A fabricated email chain.
The same screenshots he had received anonymously six months earlier.
His hands began to shake.
He looked at his mother.
“You didn’t send it.”
“No.”
Gavin sat down.
The memory came back immediately.
His mother standing in this exact office.
Begging him to listen.
Priscilla beside him.
Telling him Evelyn was trying to destroy their relationship.
Gavin had ordered his own mother out.
He hadn’t spoken to her for months.
All because of forged evidence.
Evelyn moved closer.
“Gavin.”
He couldn’t look at her.
“I called you a liar.”
“You believed what they wanted you to believe.”
“I told security not to let you upstairs.”
Evelyn’s voice cracked.
“You were angry.”
“I abandoned you.”
She reached for him.
Gavin pulled away.
Not from anger.
From shame.
Across the room, Priscilla watched silently.
Then Gavin opened another message on the burner phone.
This one was dated seven months earlier.
Before the fight.
Before the leaked report.
Before the estrangement.
It contained only one sentence.
EVELYN IS THE ONLY PERSON HE TRUSTS MORE THAN PRISCILLA.
SEPARATE THEM FIRST.
Gavin looked at Priscilla.
His voice was barely more than a whisper.
“You did this on purpose.”
Priscilla finally cracked.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”
Her eyes filled with anger.
“My father said your mother would ruin everything.”
Gavin stood.
“Everything?”
Priscilla realized what she had said.
Too late.
Gavin stepped closer.
“What exactly was everything?”
She looked toward the open safe.
Then toward the burner phone.
Then she whispered—
“The merger.”
Gavin frowned.
“There is no merger.”
Priscilla looked at Marcus.
Marcus lowered his head.
And Gavin understood.
May you like
There was a merger.
He was simply the last person who knew about it.
