CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Nova sat at the makeshift desk in the rig’s office, her laptop open in front of her as she nibbled on a granola bar and reread Paige’s email.
Confirmed with Gulf Tide HR that all names you submitted are active employees currently assigned to the rig.
Nova read it again, her fingers tapping against the desk. So, this Capperson guy was still employed. According to their HR department, he should be here on the rig. So why had those two guys told Snow that Capperson was gone? And why was his personnel file missing from the cabinet?
She had been careful with her request, framing it as a routine verification, nothing specific about Capperson that would raise flags. But now the discrepancy gnawed at her.
She also struck out with the boat. There was no vessel named Delilah registered to Gulf Tide Ventures directly, or in their subsidiary holdings.
Behind her, she heard the door to Brett’s office open.
Nova looked up as the door swung open and Brett emerged with his phone pressed to his ear.
“Tell Brewer not to touch anything else. I’m on my way now,” he said into the phone.
She watched as he pulled the door shut and locked it before pocketing the key.
On his way past her desk, still barking orders to whoever, he caught her gaze and winked.
Nova waited until the heavy door clanged shut behind him before she rolled her eyes.
She turned back to her laptop, but the words on the screen blurred together.
Her gaze moved toward Brett’s office door. The barrier between her and whatever secrets he was keeping in there. But without a key, the door might as well be a wall.
Suddenly, Jay Bird’s voice filled her head. “Never assume a locked door means you’re not supposed to go in.”
At the time, she had laughed, insisting she would never have a reason to pick a lock. Apparently, life had decided to prove her wrong.
When she had successfully picked the practice lock, Jay Bird had gifted her a lock-picking set.
Her heart rate started to speed up as she thought about what she was about to do.
With Brett out of the office and dealing with something over at the other Platform, she had a little time to work with.
She picked up her backpack, reached into the front pocket, and pulled the small leather case out. She pulled the tension wrench and the hook pick from the case.
The walk to Brett’s office door was only a few feet away, but it felt like crossing an open field under sniper fire. She listened for any sign of anyone coming. But all she heard was silence.
She knelt before the lock, the tools trembling slightly in her fingers. She kept her body angled, blocking the view of her hands.
The tension wrench slid into the keyway as she recalled Jay Bird’s instruction.
Light tension. Like you’re holding a bird, not strangling it.
Next came the hook. Applying pressure with the wrench, she used the hook to probe for the pins. Feel for the pins. Don’t force it. Let the lock tell you what it needs.
She heard the first click. Pin one was set.
Sweat gathered near her hairline, and she wiped her forearm across her brow.
The next three pins soon clicked into place, only one more to go.
Her shoulders ached from the hunched position. Somewhere below, a door slammed. Nova froze as she heard footsteps, but they faded as the person walked away, not up toward the office.
She returned to the lock. But the last pin refused to budge. She tried different angles, varying pressure, frustration mounting with each failed attempt. This was stupid and reckless.
The tension wrench slipped. “Shit!” She blurted out as she reset the pins and started again.
The first four pins clicked into place, but the fifth one held again. She could feel it, but it was being stubborn. She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath.
For some reason, she thought of Snow and the way he had looked at her at dinner last night, like she was capable of things she hadn’t even imagined for herself. He would also be furious at the risk she was taking.
She heard the pin click, and her eyes flew open. Turning the tension wrench, she felt the lock surrender, and the bolt slid back with a soft thunk that sounded like a crack of thunder in the silent space.
She had done it. A huge smile spread across her face before she could stop it. She stood up and literally jumped up and down.
Okay, focus, Nova. The thought snapped through her mind like a whip. Her grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Every second she stood there celebrating was another second someone could walk in and catch her.
She slipped through the door into Brett’s domain and immediately felt the shift in the air, though she knew it was the same, stale, cold atmosphere that circulated through the rest of the administration area.
She turned and scanned the space. It wasn’t as big as she thought it would be. A heavy metal desk dominated the room. A laptop sat angled toward the chair, flanked by a phone, a leather-bound planner, and a ceramic mug stamped with the Gulf Tide logo.
Behind the desk, a long credenza ran beneath the narrow window. Two filing cabinets stood against the opposite wall, along with a bookcase filled with binders and technical manuals. There was nowhere obvious to begin, and every second she spent deciding was another second closer to getting caught.
Nova hurried to the filing cabinets. The top drawer squeaked as it opened, making her freeze for a microsecond, but then she opened it the rest of the way.
She quickly rifled through the hanging files but found nothing but equipment manuals, maintenance schedules, and other rig operation material.
The drawers in the cabinet and the one next to it offered nothing either.
“Come on,” she whispered, looking around the room. “There has to be something in here that I risked my life for.”
She rounded Brett’s desk and pulled open the top drawer.
Nothing but pens, batteries, and two unopened rolls of breath mints.
The second drawer was just more office supplies and some receipts.
But something under the receipts caught her eye.
When she moved the receipts, she found a passport.
She picked it up and flipped it open. It was Brett’s.
At least the picture was, but the name inside said he was Anthony Telesford.
Why would Brett have a passport under another name?
Well, this just got interesting.
She pulled her phone out, snapped a picture of it, and then put the passport back in the drawer, covering it back up with the receipts.
She checked her watch. She had been inside for less than five minutes, though it felt like twenty.
Her gaze then landed on the credenza. Several files had been stacked neatly at one end, beside a tray of unopened mail. She flipped through them.
The top folder contained an inspection report from the previous week. Beneath it was a vendor contract. Her hand froze on the third file—Capperson’s personnel file.
Nova snatched it up and opened it. As she flipped through it, she felt a little disappointed that all it contained was the typical HR documents.
“Seriously?” she muttered in frustration. She had risked getting caught for a folder filled with exactly the kind of generic personnel records she could have requested through official channels.
She started to return the file to the credenza when something beneath it caught her attention.
A slim spiral-bound blue notebook lay half-hidden under the stack, its cover worn at the corners. Then she noticed the name written in small block letters along the bottom edge—Capperson.
The first few pages contained dates and times written down. On a few of the entries, there were initials and additional times as if someone was timing something.
Whatever she was looking at, it wasn’t just a journal. It was a record. Nova pulled out her phone and began photographing each page.
She turned to the last page and found the name Andre Matisse written at the top. Beneath his name were similar entries like the other pages, though not as many. She took a picture.
She closed the notebook and went to put it back where it had been when a few Polaroid photographs slipped out and fell to the floor.
She quickly bent down to pick them up, expecting them to be personal pictures.
However, they weren’t. The first was a picture of long cylinder-type canisters.
It kinda looked like a torpedo, but on a smaller scale.
Each one had a dark band around its center and some kind of marking near the top, though the photograph was too grainy for her to read it.
The second picture appeared to show an assortment of metal components spread across a workbench, along with wires, something that looked like a small propeller, and a few sealed packages she couldn’t make out. There was also something that resembled a gaming controller.
The last photo was a large metal barrel. A white label covered part of its side, marked with symbols and lettering she couldn’t identify.
Nova photographed each Polaroid, front and back. There was no writing on the first two, but the third had a date scrawled along the bottom edge.
Just as she took the last picture, a muffled clang sounded somewhere outside. Nova crouched behind Brett’s desk with the photos in her hand.
Her heart was racing. She was going to get caught. She waited a few seconds, and when she didn’t hear anything else, she stood up slowly and then started to put everything back where she found it.
“Okay, now to get out of here,” she whispered before checking the desk and cabinets, making sure that nothing looked disturbed.
She started toward the door when she noticed a small table to the right. A laptop sat open on it, the screen dark. Next to the computer was a box filled with blank white access cards. A small card reader was connected to the side of the computer. It was the computer used to make the key cards.
Nova glanced at the door. She should leave. She had already found more than she expected. Capperson’s notebook alone could be the break they needed, and every second she stayed inside that office increased the chance that someone would discover her.
However, her feet moved toward the computer before her brain could object. She brushed one finger across the touchpad, and the screen awakened.
There was no login prompt, just a management window displaying a search field and several tabs marked users, access history, and card management.
Nova clicked the search bar and typed Brett’s name. When his name appeared, she selected it, and a long list populated the screen with dates, times, doors, and platforms.
Nova skimmed the list looking for anything unusual. Most entries showed access to spaces on Platform One and Two. But then she saw entries where Brett had accessed Platform Three repeatedly in the last week alone, often late at night, during hours when most of the crew would have been asleep.
Nova switched the date range to the previous month. The list expanded until Platform Three entries filled nearly half the screen. Brett hadn’t been avoiding Platform Three. He practically lived there at night.
She took a picture, then lowered her phone and stared at the box of blank cards. An idea took shape. Snow needed access to that platform.
She could assign his existing card, but if Brett were monitoring Snow’s whereabouts, which she was pretty sure he was, then he would see if Snow accessed Platform Three.
A blank card, however, wouldn’t be tied to him.
Nova selected the “card management” tab and took one of the new cards from the box.
The system guided her through a short setup screen.
She avoided names, employee numbers, and anything that would connect the card to Snow, creating a temporary maintenance credential instead.
She selected full access for Platform Three.
She held the card over the card reader. When the card reader gave a faint beep and flashed a small green light, Nova let out a breath she had apparently been holding.
She nearly laughed at how nervous she was.
Seconds later, she heard voices coming from the outside, followed by footsteps on the metal stairs.
Shit…shit…shit!
She quickly pulled the card from the reader and shoved it into her pocket, then clicked back through the program until the welcome screen reappeared.
The voices and footsteps grew louder. “I don’t care what he said. I’m the boss out here,” a man snapped.
Oh God! That was Brett!
Nova’s heart was beating so hard she thought it was going to burst right out of her chest.
She stepped back from the table. Her hip caught the corner, causing a cup filled with pens and pencils to fall onto the floor.
“No. No, no, no.”
The footsteps grew louder as Nova dropped to her knees. She grabbed the cup, scooped up all the pens and pencils, and shoved them back into the cup.
The voices were now directly outside the heavy door.
Nova quickly placed the cup back on the table. She hurried to the door, slipped out, and pulled the door closed behind her, making sure it was locked.
Just as she made it to her desk and dropped into the chair, the door handle turned, and Brett walked in, followed by two other men.
Nova kept her eyes on the laptop screen in front of her, though every muscle in her body tightened.
The two crew guys followed Brett toward his office. One was tall and broad-shouldered with a stained work shirt. The other looked younger, his face pale beneath several days of beard growth.
Brett didn’t acknowledge Nova, which she was happy for.
“Do either of you understand what the consequences would have been if that valve hadn’t been sealed?” he asked, his voice clipped.
“But it was sealed,” the younger man replied.
“That’s not the fucking point!” Brett yelled, making Nova flinch.
They reached his office door, and Nova’s heart threatened to climb into her throat. Was he going to realize that someone had been in his office?
She held her breath as he took his key out and unlocked the door. He stepped inside, then glanced back toward the men. “Both of you. Get in here.”
As soon as they entered, the door slammed shut behind them.
Nova didn’t waste another second. She closed her laptop, gathered all the documents she had been working on, and threw them into her bag, not bothering to arrange anything neatly.
Her chair scraped softly against the floor as she stood. She took one last glance towards Brett’s office before slinging her bag over her shoulder and heading towards the door.
The moment her feet hit the stairs, she picked up her pace.
She looked at her watch again. Snow had told her that he had a call scheduled with the team, so he should be in the room. That’s where she headed.