Chapter Thirteen—Chris
MARK STONE CALLS AT seven Monday morning while I’m pouring coffee in the guesthouse. “I need you sitting down for this.”
The tone gets my attention. I set the pot back on the warmer and sit on the edge of the bed. “Go.”
“Fenton Grey isn’t his real name.”
For a second, I think I’ve misunderstood him. “What?”
“Your assistant. His legal name was Timothy Farris. He changed it while you and Lorna were dating.”
I grip the phone tighter. “That’s wrong.”
“It isn’t.” Paper rustles on Mark’s end. “We ran facial recognition against archived commercial images from his twenties. I have multiple matches, including agency material under Timothy Farris.”
The guesthouse seems too quiet around me. “Fenton has worked for me for three years.”
“Timothy Farris has worked for you for three years.”
I stand again. Sitting is impossible now. “He was vetted. Background check, references, and employment history, both by the temp agency and again by my company when I hired him directly.”
“The Grey identity predates the wedding. He started establishing it after you and Lorna became serious, then kept building the history until it could survive a background check. Credit, employment history, references, and everything necessary were fabricated over months before your staffing agency ever saw his résumé.”
I walk to the window. The lodge is partially visible through the trees. Lorna is over there.
“Why?” I ask.
“That’s the second part.” Mark pauses before continuing. “Timothy Farris worked in fashion before he became Fenton Grey. Mostly photography. Some commercial modeling when he was younger. I’ve found jobs that put him on sets with Lorna before you met her.”
I turn away from the window. “How many?”
“Enough that this isn’t coincidence.”
The name finally connects to things Lorna has mentioned over the years. Photographers she barely remembered. Assistants. Crews that changed every few days. People who watched her for a living.
My head starts throbbing. “Keep going.”
“I contacted your corporate counsel before I called you.” Mark’s keyboard clicks in the background. “Jensen authorized IT to preserve Grey’s company account and server data without alerting him. He’s still technically your employee, which helped.”
“He hasn’t been working since Thursday.” I gave him a few days off after having him clear my calendar for the next week.
“I know. His company laptop stopped checking in Friday morning.”
Cold works through me. “Stopped checking in?”
“He disabled remote management.”
That’s unnecessary for a few days off. I leave the coffee untouched and pull on my shoes. “What did IT find?”
“Recovered material from his company storage and deleted directories. Notes about Lorna. Some are embedded in ordinary calendar and logistics files. Others aren’t.”
My stomach drops. “What kind of notes?”
Mark is quiet for a beat. “Her routines. Restaurants. Gym times. Airport routes. Deliveries. Clothing brands. Music. Places she went when you traveled. Some of it could plausibly belong in an executive assistant’s records. A lot of it couldn’t.”
I stop with one shoe half tied. “How far back?”
“Almost two and a half years.”
The same period Lorna has been receiving gifts, perfume, messages, and photographs.
“He...” My stomach clenches tighter.
“I know.”
I finish tying my shoe and stand. “Tell me you have more than notes.”
“We do.”
I walk outside. Cold air hits my face as I cross the yard, but I don’t go to the lodge yet. Lorna doesn’t need half an answer. I stop near the fence I repaired last week and wait for Stone to continue.
“We went back through the alibi from the night of the penthouse intrusion. IT found scheduled processes associated with the authenticated session. Some of the activity Willa reviewed wasn’t being generated by a person sitting at the computer.”
I close my eyes.
The continuous activity from Fenton’s registered home network had been the reason everyone cleared him. Not one email. Nearly an hour of normal work, every few minutes, all of it authenticated and consistent with his usual pattern. “How much was automated?”
Mark taps his keyboard before answering. “Enough to destroy the alibi. Calendar updates, file changes, uploads, and outgoing communications were queued. We’re still determining whether some activity was remotely triggered, but the pattern was constructed to resemble an ordinary work session.”
Nausea burns up my esophagus. “He built it before he left to attack my wife.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
I open my eyes and look toward the lodge. “Is there any evidence from his building?”
“No camera coverage in the residential garage.” Mark’s answer comes immediately. “We can’t establish when his vehicle left or returned.”
“The corridor footage?”
“Consistent height and build. That’s all I’m willing to say from the image itself. The footage doesn’t identify him.”
Good. At least one part of this isn’t being stretched to fit.
Stone continues. “The police don’t need the footage alone anymore. They have the false identity, recovered surveillance material, the compromised alibi, and additional evidence tying Farris to the communications Lorna received. They’re preparing warrants now.”
I start walking toward the lodge. “Additional evidence?”
“Accounts created through devices and networks associated with him. Purchases that correspond with items sent to Lorna. I don’t have the complete police package yet.”
That’s enough. It’s more than enough. “Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
I stop again, closing my hand around the fence rail.
“His apartment appears to have been cleared deliberately,” Mark says. “Personal phone is off. No activity on his known cards since Thursday. He withdrew cash before he disappeared.”
Thursday.
The day I told him not to send another package here. I look toward the lodge. “What about the shipment?”
Stone doesn’t answer immediately.
“Mark.”
“That’s why I told you to sit down. The first package you had him send while you were at the lodge. He processed it himself?”
“Yes.”
“You gave him the post office.”
“Yes.”
Mark exhales through his nose. “I checked the location against what we know from Farris’s recent search activity.”
I already know what he’s going to say.
“He has the county.”
My grip tightens on the rail.
“We recovered searches concentrated in western North Carolina,” Mark continues. “They narrow sharply after the shipment was processed. Property records, maps, and local businesses. He doesn’t appear to have the lodge address yet, but I wouldn’t rely on it staying like that.”
Tim got his county and started digging because I handed it to him. I curse and kick the fence post. “I might as well have sent him an invitation.”
Mark doesn’t agree, but he also doesn’t disagree, which says everything.
I look across the yard at the lodge where Lorna came because Charleston wasn’t safe. I gave him the breadcrumb that followed her here.
“Chris.”
“I’m here.” I sound like someone completely different.
“You need to tell Willa now.” Mark’s voice sharpens. “Local law enforcement needs the address, and you need an extraction plan.”
I start across the yard. “Already moving.” I end the call.
I cover the distance in a jog. The lodge door is locked. I knock harder than I intend to, and Lorna opens it wearing leggings and a sweater. Her hair is damp, and she has a coffee mug in one hand.
Whatever she sees on my face wipes away the question she was about to ask. “Chris?”
“Where’s Willa?”
Lorna’s fingers close harder around the mug. “Upstairs. What happened?”
“Get her.”
She turns toward the stairs and calls, “Willa.”
Willa appears on the landing within seconds. Her phone is already in her hand when she comes down.
I wait until she’s beside Lorna. “Fenton is Tim.”
Neither woman speaks. They share a puzzled look.
“Timothy Farris. That’s his real name. Stone confirmed it through archived fashion work and facial recognition. Farris built the Grey identity before he applied to work for me.”
Lorna lowers her coffee. “Timothy Farris?”
“Photographer. He worked around you before we met.”
Her forehead creases as she searches her memory. “I don’t know that name.”
“He knows yours.”
Lorna’s attention snaps back to me.
“IT recovered surveillance notes from Fenton’s corporate data.” I keep my voice level, trying to avoid letting my fear bleed through. “He tracked your routines, restaurants, gym schedule, airport routes, things you bought, and music you listened to. Some go back almost two and a half years.”
Her face loses color. “What music?”
The question catches me by surprise. “Stone said there were notes about what you listened to.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“In the car? At the gym?” Lorna sets the mug on the hallway table too quickly. Coffee sloshes over the rim onto her fingers, but she doesn’t react. “At home?”
“I don’t know.”
She wipes her wet hand against her leggings and looks toward the kitchen as though she’s trying to see two years of her own life from where she stands. “He knew what I played when I was cooking.”
I don’t answer.
Her gaze comes back to mine. “He knew what I listened to when I cooked. He was watching me at home.”
“Yes.”
Lorna presses her lips together. For the first time since I walked in, fear breaks through her shock. “He wasn’t in our kitchen.”
“No.”
“Then how did he know?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Willa steps closer to her. “We’ll find out.”
Lorna looks at her. “He knew when I was home alone.” The words come out differently than everything before them.
Willa doesn’t soften the answer. “It appears that way.”
Lorna wraps her arms around herself, then immediately drops them again as if she can’t stand being confined. She turns toward the front windows.
“The alibi?” Willa asks.
I shift my attention to her. “Manufactured. Scheduled processes generated the work activity from his home system. His building has no camera in the residential garage.”
Willa’s mouth tightens. “The entire authenticated session?”
“Enough of it to destroy the alibi.”
Lorna turns back from the window. “He was the man in the penthouse.”