Chapter 31 #2
My hand shakes as I add the folders to another email, and check the progress of the others. Aetheris Pharma has sent. Stonegate’s completed. Blueforge hasn’t far to go, and Ironvale has just begun. It’s going to take a while, but it’s the one I want.
I lean back in DeLuca’s chair, shaking my head at what I’ve found.
This isn’t only enough to undermine Northbridge, it’s enough to put the board in prison.
Adrian Chambers, our CEO—he’s on the Company board, too.
What would Fournier think of him going down?
Of the damage to Northbridge? Armitage and Calder, too.
Sentinel Risk. With what I’ve got, I’m sure I can find something on Apex Advanced. But I don’t really need to.
Asset freezes, fines, criminal indictments.
My own likely among them.
But I knew that going in. It’s a bluff I’m going to run. Hurt me, I’ll hurt you. Make it too expensive for Van Wyk to come after me, or Vicky. Fournier’s a businessman; he’ll understand.
I hope.
The progress bar on Ironvale is ticking along damn slowly.
Now that I’m watching it and not digging for more, the time is crawling.
I distract myself by rifling through DeLuca’s desk.
A dirty magazine in the bottom drawer; he really is old school.
Who buys magazines anymore? Stationery. A Valentine’s card from Maria. Cute.
And a gun. DeLuca has a gun in his desk.
I stare at the drawer I’ve just opened, then close it again.
I suppose that’s not a surprise. Not for a man like him.
Ironvale’s hit fifty percent, and I’m not leaving until it’s done. It’s ten after eight. Another ten minutes, maybe.
On a whim, I pull DeLuca’s folder up again, and type in a search: Reyes.
It thinks for a moment, the cogs spinning, then puts out a list of files.
But I recognize all of them as ones I’ve authored and sent to DeLuca.
It’s not what I expected, and there’s hardly anything else.
I flick through a couple I don’t recognize, satisfying myself they’re benign, and I’m not sure if I’m relieved or confused. DeLuca must have something on me.
If not me…
I type in ‘Callahan’.
A file gets a hit. Then another, and another, until there’re two dozen. They’re all in the Origin Enterprise folder; that tracks. Quite a few of them, though. I click one open, seeing it’s from Sentinel Risk.
They did a profile on her. That’s… insane. One corporate investigator, and they went to these extremes?
I wasn’t even aware.
Half of them are image files, jpegs. I click one at random.
Vicky looks back at me, wearing a suit. I recognize her; it’s the day of the Arbitration, but she’s not in it. She’s outside, the picture taken from a low angle, while she speaks to one of Origin Engineering’s legal team.
They have a picture of Vicky. Shock chills me. My muscles tense.
I close it, fingers numb, and open the next. And the next.
No… they have a dozen pictures. All from that same event. A close up. Talking to one person, then another. Each of them taken without her awareness.
Back from before we even met.
How could that be? Why?
But I know that answer. It’s because she was investigating Northbridge.
“You should go yourself,” I remember DeLuca telling me.
“Let the legal teams handle it.”
“It’s your case, Alexander. Be there.”
Was Vicky the reason why?
Ironvale needs another five minutes to complete. Rita’s still outside somewhere, keeping watch.
On a whim, I type Rita Lucero into the search bar.
Only a half-dozen hits, but one is in a folder called Nov20. That’s when I joined.
I open it, and there are hundreds of files, but most of them are media. I ignore those, clicking on a word document, scanning quickly.
Nov20 completed the Origin Enterprise project ahead of schedule and with…
Fuck.
I’m Nov20.
I click on a media file at random. A video plays; it’s Westchester. My house. There’s a goddamn camera in my house.
My hair stands on end.
My front door opens, and I walk in. The camera’s in my entrance hall.
I close it down, hit another file. Westchester again; different room. Vicky in the kitchen, wearing the silk bathrobe I got her for Christmas.
Another file. This one’s my Manhattan apartment. We’re both there. It’s… the night of the dance.
Jesus fucking Christ.
I watch myself pin her to the wall and kiss her, then take her hand and lead her to the bedroom.
My goddamn bedroom.
I scan the list of files, seeing how they’re named by date and time, like automatically collected recordings. My fingers are trembling as I click another of that evening. It’s somewhere in the kitchen, and it begins as the front door opens as we arrive. Nothing before: motion detection.
It’s not the kitchen I care about.
The third one I open is my bedroom. It shows everything, the whole room, from a ceiling point of view.
The camera’s somewhere in the light fixtures.
I watch us come in. I watch myself rip Vicky’s dress off.
I skip forward, my blood pumping cold through my veins.
She’s on the bed. She’s fucking naked on the bed, and it’s on DeLuca’s computer.
My hand’s trembling as I kill the footage. There are hundreds of files in this folder.
The most recent is dated yesterday, the time stamp from early, but it’s massive; over forty gig in size. There’re four of them, all from yesterday. I wasn’t even home then.
I click it open, my heart pounding in my chest.
It’s not my apartment, and relief wars with confusion. It’s not Westchester, either.
It’s…
Fuck.
It’s Carol’s apartment. Vicky’s there, Carol’s there.
I skim through. The footage covers three hours. I jump forward at random, and they’re working on laptops in Carol’s room. She doesn’t look unwell, she looks very focused.
The most recent file is an email, and it’s dated yesterday. I open it, scanning the text, my mouth dry.
It’s an email to DeLuca from Lukas Van Wyk, and it starts with a screenshot from a monitoring platform.
Case Activity Alert—Van Wyk v. Van Wyk.
A monitored case has new activity.
Event: Document Access/Docket Query.
Timestamp: 14:37 EST.
DL, what the hell is your man playing at? Didn’t you tell him to get his investigator in line? It’s out of your hands now. BF not amused.
I stare at the screen, not moving, not able to move.
Vicky… what have you done?
Shit… where is she? Is she still at Carol’s?
I haven’t checked her location all day. Every five minutes the last two days, and not once today. With Van Wyk aware since yesterday.
I pull out my phone, bring up the app that links to her. It takes seconds to connect, and I don’t breathe for that time. I’m not even sure my heart is beating.
There’s her dot… and she’s in Brooklyn. I slump in relief.
Unless that’s just where her phone is.
Then I look again. That’s not the location of Carol’s apartment; I’ve been staring at that damn dot for the last two days, and that’s not it.
It’s somewhere in Red Hook, a warehouse near the pier.
What the hell is she doing there?
I’m on my feet before I even register it, then stop and force myself to think.
The Ironvale file has completed. That’s all I need.
I select all the files in my folder—the images, the videos, the whole lot—and hit delete.
Then I pull open DeLuca’s desk drawer, and borrow his gun.