CHAPTER 7 #2
He crossed the corridor and swiped his card.
The light turned green.
“Security rotates through the lower level every seven minutes.”
“Why help us?” Lars asked.
Howard looked at him.
“Because I have a son who wants to play hockey.”
He opened the door.
“Go.”
We descended the stairwell.
Above us, Matteo’s voice suddenly blasted through the ballroom speakers.
“I would like to thank Graham West for teaching me the meaning of family.”
Applause began.
Then Matteo continued.
“In this family, doctors falsify your records, executives threaten your contract, and if your brain starts failing, they call you difficult.”
The applause stopped.
Shouting replaced it.
Lars almost smiled.
“His timing is good.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Both can be true.”
We reached the lower level.
The server room required two forms of access.
A numeric code.
Then a biometric scan.
“Graham’s office,” I said.
We turned toward the private elevator.
The office level should have been empty.
It was not.
A woman in a white gown stood near the elevator, holding a champagne glass.
Rebecca Sloan.
My former editor.
She froze when she saw me.
“Aaliyah.”
I stopped.
Lars remained beside me.
“What are you doing here?” Rebecca asked.
“I could ask you the same.”
“The Ledger sponsors the event.”
“Of course it does.”
Her eyes moved toward the secured corridor.
Then to Lars.
Understanding entered her face.
“You need to leave.”
“You fired me without an interview.”
“The audio changed the situation.”
“The audio was edited.”
“We had forensic analysts review it.”
“Analysts paid by whom?”
Her mouth tightened.
“This is not the place.”
“No. The place would have been your office, before you released a statement implying a stolen photograph proved I lacked ethics.”
Regret flickered across her face.
“I was under pressure.”
“So was I.”
“The board believed your marriage created liability.”
“My marriage existed when you hired me.”
“You did not disclose it.”
“Would you have hired me if I had?”
She hesitated.
That was my answer.
Lars stepped forward.
Rebecca looked at him.
“You made her position impossible.”
His face hardened.
“No. People like you did.”
“I gave her opportunities.”
“She earned them.”
“I know she did.”
“Then why was it so easy to throw her away?”
Rebecca flinched.
I should have felt vindicated.
Instead, I felt tired.
“You still have my investigation notes,” I said.
“They are company property.”
“They concern criminal activity.”
“If you obtained information while employed—”
“You mean before you fired me and kept my work?”
Rebecca’s hand tightened around her glass.
“You do not know what you’re dealing with.”
“Then tell me.”
She looked toward the elevator.
“Graham has influence over the Ledger’s ownership group.”
The words confirmed what I had suspected.
“How much influence?”
“He facilitated the acquisition that saved us three years ago.”
Three years.
Around the time I joined.
Around the time Lars and I separated.
Had Graham encouraged my hiring because he wanted me nearby?
Easier to monitor?
Easier to discredit?
My career suddenly felt contaminated by a hand I had never seen.
“Did he get me the job?” I asked.
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“No. Your work got you the job. Graham encouraged the board to approve it.”
My stomach turned.
Lars’s expression became lethal.
“He placed her there.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I did not understand why.”
“You didn’t ask,” I said.
Shouting echoed from the ballroom above.
Security radios crackled somewhere down the corridor.
Rebecca glanced toward the sound.
Then she removed a card from her purse.
“Graham’s office has secondary access through the executive records room.”
She handed me the card.
I stared at it.
“This does not fix what you did.”
“I know.”
I took it anyway.
We entered through the records room.
Graham’s office overlooked the empty arena.
From behind the glass, we could see the ballroom below, where donors clustered around Matteo and security attempted to remove him from the stage.
Naomi stood nearby, recording.
Graham was no longer there.
His desk required a fingerprint.
Lars pulled open drawers instead.
Locked.
He grabbed the handle and tore the first one from its track.
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Inside were contracts.
Confidentiality agreements.
A second phone.
A small notebook.
No code.
I searched the shelves.
Awards.
Photographs.
A framed newspaper article praising Graham’s leadership during a player safety initiative.
The hypocrisy made my skin crawl.
Lars opened the notebook.
Rows of numbers filled the pages.
“Try this.”
The server access code was eight digits.
Several entries matched the format.
We photographed every page.
Then the office door closed behind us.
Graham stood there.
Two security officers flanked him.
He removed his cuff links slowly.
“I expected Lars,” he said. “I hoped you would be smarter, Aaliyah.”
Lars moved in front of me.
I stepped beside him.
Not behind.
Graham noticed.
“You have made a spectacle of yourselves.”
“You leaked our marriage,” I said.
He did not deny it.
“You sent the photographs to discredit me before Derek spoke.”
“Derek is unwell.”
“You had him attacked.”
“That is a serious allegation.”
“You had me followed.”
“I had the organization’s interests monitored.”
Lars lunged forward.
I caught his arm.
Graham smiled.
“Still so easy.”
Lars went rigid.
“That is what he wants,” I whispered.
Graham looked at me.
“You do understand him better than most.”
“I understand men who build systems that make other people look guilty.”
He poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter.
“Let us stop pretending this ends well for you.”
“It already ended badly,” I said. “You fired the first shot when you leaked the photographs.”
“I did not fire anything.”
“Interesting choice of words.”
His hand paused.
Only for a fraction of a second.
Enough.
“You cannot prove the attack came from me.”
“Not yet.”
“And the medical files? Stolen records acquired by a disgraced journalist and her cognitively impaired husband.”
Lars’s body tightened.
Graham had chosen the words deliberately.
Cognitively impaired.
A diagnosis turned into a weapon.
Graham continued.
“The league will question chain of custody. Physicians will deny wrongdoing. Players will retreat once their contracts are threatened. Your story will become an emotional revenge campaign by a woman fired for ethical misconduct.”
He looked at Lars.
“And you will become what everyone already believes you are. Violent. Unstable. Brain damaged.”
Lars moved.
I stepped in front of him.
His chest struck my back.
I felt his rage vibrate through both of us.
“Don’t,” I said.
Graham smiled.
“Listen to your wife.”
I turned toward Lars.
His pupils were wide.
His hand shook violently now.
Not only anger.
The lights.
The stress.
The previous hits.
I placed my palm against his cheek.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“Do not give him the ending he wrote for you.”
His breathing slowed.
Graham’s smile faded.
I faced him again.
“You know the difference between you and my husband?”
Graham lifted his glass.
“Enlighten me.”
“Lars knows he is dangerous.”
The room went quiet.
“You hide behind respectability.”
I stepped closer.
“You wear expensive suits. Donate to hospitals. Smile for cameras. Then you threaten injured men in private and call it business.”
His expression cooled.
“You are making a mistake.”
“No. I made the mistake eight years ago when I believed silence could protect anything.”
Graham set down his glass.
“I can restore your career.”
Lars stiffened.
I did not look at him.
Graham continued.
“The Ledger will reinstate you. Publicly. We will explain that the edited audio came from an outside actor. You will receive an exclusive interview with the commissioner and a new investigative division under your leadership.”
The offer was enormous.
Everything I had lost.
More than I had ever been given.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Destroy the drive.”
“And?”
“State that Lars concealed the full extent of his medical condition and manipulated you into believing the organization acted improperly.”
Lars’s face became unreadable.
Graham looked at him.
“In exchange, the league permits you to retire quietly. Your records remain intact. Your endorsements are protected. Your wife gets her career.”
He turned back to me.
“You both leave with dignity.”
The word disgusted me.
“What about Derek?”
“He receives treatment.”
“What about the other players?”
“The league reviews its procedures.”
“You mean nothing changes.”
“I mean change occurs responsibly.”
I laughed.
“You offered me a promotion to help bury men alive.”
“I offered you power.”
“No. You offered me proximity to yours.”
His eyes hardened.
“Think carefully.”
“I have.”
Behind him, the office television showed silent footage from the ballroom.
Matteo had climbed onto a table.
Security reached for him.
Then he punched the fire-alarm panel.
Red lights began flashing throughout the arena.
An alarm screamed.
The gala dissolved into chaos.
Graham looked at the screen.
Lars grabbed the notebook.
I took the access card.
We ran.
One security officer reached for me.
Lars struck him once in the chest and drove him backward into the wall.
The second moved toward Lars.
I swung Graham’s crystal decanter into his arm.
It shattered.
The officer cursed and fell back.
I stared at the broken glass in my hand.
Lars looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
We reached the stairwell.
Graham’s voice followed us.
“You publish those files and his career is finished!”
Lars stopped.
For one terrifying second, I thought he would turn back.
Instead, he looked at me.
“Good.”
Then we kept running.
The lower corridor filled with alarms and flashing red light.
The first code failed.
The second failed.
The third unlocked the keypad.
The biometric scanner remained red.
“Graham’s fingerprint,” I said.
Lars looked at the scanner.
Then at the notebook.
A small square of clear tape clung to the cover.
A fingerprint.
“Derek,” he said.
He pressed the tape against the scanner.
Green light.
The server-room door opened.
Cold air hit us.
Rows of black machines stretched into darkness, their lights blinking steadily.