Chapter 2 - Room 417
The handle moved.
Adrian raised one hand.
Nobody touched the door.
“Daniel?” Emma called.
Silence.
Then came another sound.
Something scraping across the floor.
One of Adrian’s security men, Marcus Reed, stepped beside the door.
He was broad-shouldered, gray-haired, and calm in a way Emma found reassuring.
“Mr. Vale.”
Adrian nodded.
Marcus pulled the door open.
The room was dark.
Emma smelled dust, overheated electronics, and something metallic.
“Stay behind me,” Adrian said.
She almost laughed.
Twenty minutes ago, she had been covering the lobby desk and thinking about whether the grocery store would still have cranberries.
Now she was entering a hidden corporate room behind a man rumored to have made enemies disappear.
Yet somehow Adrian Vale was the least frightening thing in the building.
Lights flickered on.
Room 417 was larger than Emma expected.
No desks.
No windows.
Server racks occupied one wall.
Metal filing cabinets filled another.
Two chairs stood in the center.
One was overturned.
The other—
Empty.
Emma stepped inside.
“Daniel?”
No answer.
Marcus moved toward the back.
“Clear.”
Susan entered last.
Her face had lost all color.
Adrian looked around.
“Where are the records?”
Susan pointed toward the cabinets.
“Some.”
“What else?”
“The servers.”
Emma walked toward the overturned chair.
A dark smear crossed one armrest.
Not enough to be immediately horrifying.
Enough to make her stop.
Adrian noticed.
“Don’t touch it.”
She stepped away.
Martin said, “If Winters was here, where is he?”
Emma looked at the door.
“He spoke to me.”
Susan whispered, “Maybe it wasn’t him.”
Everyone turned.
“What does that mean?” Emma asked.
Susan’s eyes moved toward the speakers mounted in the ceiling.
Adrian followed her gaze.
“Audio system?”
Susan nodded.
“They can route recorded voice through the room.”
Emma’s skin prickled.
“You’re saying someone played Daniel’s voice?”
“I’m saying they could.”
“Why?”
“To get us inside.”
The door slammed shut.
Martin shouted.
Marcus grabbed the handle.
Locked.
The overhead lights went out.
For three seconds there was complete darkness.
Then red emergency lighting appeared.
Adrian’s voice remained calm.
“Phones.”
Everyone checked.
No signal.
Marcus tried his radio.
Nothing.
Susan began breathing quickly.
“They know we’re here.”
Adrian looked toward the ceiling camera.
“Good.”
Emma stared at him.
“Good?”
“They just confirmed this room matters.”
He took out his phone anyway and activated its flashlight.
“Find the manual release.”
Marcus and the second guard moved toward the door controls.
Emma walked toward the server racks.
A monitor flickered awake.
One line appeared.
WELCOME, MR. VALE.
She stopped.
“Adrian.”
He turned.
Everyone looked at the screen.
A second line appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE WALKED AWAY.
Then a countdown began.
05:00.
04:59.
04:58.
Martin backed away.
“What happens at zero?”
Adrian looked at Susan.
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You worked legal.”
“I reviewed contracts. I didn’t build the system.”
Emma stared at the server.
“Could it wipe the records?”
Marcus answered.
“Likely.”
Adrian said, “Then we have five minutes.”
He moved toward the filing cabinets.
Locked.
Marcus pulled a compact pry tool from his jacket.
Emma stared.
He caught her expression.
“Acquisitions get complicated.”
Under different circumstances, she might have smiled.
The cabinet opened.
Folders.
Hundreds of them.
Names.
Employee numbers.
Vendor accounts.
Photographs.
Adrian pulled one.
Inside were copies of wire transfers.
Cash payments.
Surveillance photos.
Blackmail.
Susan whispered, “God.”
Adrian flipped pages.
“Bribery ledger.”
Martin grabbed another folder.
His face changed.
“My name is in here.”
Emma looked at him.
“What?”
He opened it.
Photos of Martin entering a hotel.
Bank statements.
Private emails.
Someone had documented his affair.
Martin sat down hard.
“They threatened me.”
Adrian looked at him.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
“And you said nothing?”
“They said my wife would get everything.”
“That’s why you kept quiet downstairs?”
Martin looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Emma remembered his frozen expression while Cade held her.
Her anger softened.
Not disappeared.
Softened.
Susan opened another cabinet.
“This is how they controlled people.”
“Who?” Emma demanded.
Susan finally answered.
“The Executive Committee.”
Adrian frowned.
“There is no Executive Committee on the corporate structure.”
“Exactly.”
The countdown reached 03:42.
Susan pulled files faster.
“Winters discovered payments going to shell companies. He asked me to trace them.”
“Where did they lead?”
“I never finished.”
“Why?”
“Because Cade came to my house.”
Emma looked at her.
“He threatened you?”
Susan nodded.
“He had photographs of my daughter leaving school.”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“What did Winters do after that?”
“He started copying evidence.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma thought of Daniel’s strange call.
If anyone asks about him, you didn’t speak to him.
Maybe Winters had been trying to protect Adrian’s acquisition.
Or protect the evidence.
The monitor beeped.
02:55.
Adrian turned toward the server racks.
“Can anyone download this?”
Emma raised her hand slowly.
“I might.”
Everybody stared.
“I’m not a hacker. But reception handles badge provisioning and guest systems. The interface looks similar.”
“Try.”
She sat at the terminal.
Password prompt.
Emma typed her administrative credential.
Denied.
She tried Daniel Winters’s executive code.
Denied.
Then she looked at the torn badge.
Cade wrote it on the back.
Maybe not a room number.
Maybe a code.
She typed 0417.
Access granted.
Everyone went silent.
Adrian leaned closer.
“Branick’s override.”
Emma nodded.
The screen opened a directory.
Thousands of files.
She plugged in a portable drive Marcus handed her.
“How big?”
“Two terabytes.”
“Hopefully enough.”
Transfer started.
01:58.
The progress bar moved painfully slowly.
18%.
25%.
31%.
Martin paced.
Susan searched cabinets.
Adrian stood beside Emma.
She felt his attention on the screen.
“Why did you come back?” she asked.
“What?”
“You left after meeting Winters. Why were you in the lobby again?”
“Something in the transfer documents was wrong.”
“What?”
“One page had been replaced.”
“By whom?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Now?”
He looked toward the files.
“I have a theory.”
The countdown reached 01:02.
Transfer: 74%.
Marcus shouted from the door.
“Manual release is disabled.”
Adrian said, “Break the hinges.”
Marcus started working.
00:45.
86%.
Emma stared at the bar.
“Come on.”
93%.
00:28.
97%.
00:18.
99%.
00:12.
Transfer complete.
Emma yanked the drive.
The monitor instantly went black.
A deep mechanical hum began.
Server lights disappeared row by row.
The system was wiping itself.
Marcus kicked the door.
Once.
Twice.
Third time—
Metal snapped.
The door opened.
They rushed into the corridor.
Behind them, smoke began rising from one server.
“Move,” Adrian ordered.
They reached the stairwell.
Fire alarms screamed.
Emma looked back.
Room 417 filled with automatic suppressant gas.
Whatever remained inside would soon be destroyed.
But the drive was in her hand.
Adrian took it.
“You just saved the company’s evidence.”
Emma shook her head.
“I saved some files.”
“Sometimes that’s the same thing.”
Downstairs, police were arriving.
Adrian had apparently activated a silent emergency signal through one of his security men before they entered 417.
Cade Branick was gone.
Daniel Winters was missing.
And somebody had tried to trap them.
Detective Naomi Perez took Emma’s statement.
She was practical, skeptical, and unimpressed by Adrian’s reputation.
“I’m going to need that drive.”
Adrian said, “You’ll get a verified copy.”
“I said I need the drive.”
“And I said you’ll get a copy.”
Perez stared at him.
Emma expected fireworks.
Instead Adrian said, “You want chain of custody. I want redundancy.”
Perez considered that.
“Fine.”
They created three encrypted copies.
One for police.
One for Adrian’s attorneys.
One placed in a secure off-site vault.
At least, that was what Adrian told everyone.
Later, after midnight, Emma sat in a conference room wrapped in a borrowed coat.
Her wrist had begun bruising.
Adrian entered carrying coffee.
“You should go home.”
“So should you.”
“I own the building.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to sleep in it.”
He handed her a cup.
“Your car is being brought around.”
Emma accepted it.
“Thank you.”
He turned to leave.
“Adrian.”
He looked back.
“Why are you helping me?”
His expression almost softened.
“Because he put his hands on one of my employees.”
“I wasn’t your employee when he did.”
“You were by twenty minutes.”
She smiled faintly.
Then remembered.
“Cade said I knew something.”
Adrian’s smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
“I don’t.”
“Maybe you saw something without realizing it.”
She thought through the day.
Visitors.
Deliveries.
Calls.
Nothing.
Then she remembered a package.
At 1:36 p.m.
No sender.
Delivered by courier.
Addressed to Daniel Winters.
She had signed for it.
The package was unusually heavy.
And before sending it upstairs, she had followed company policy and photographed the shipping label.
Her phone automatically saved reception delivery images to a shared folder.
Emma pulled out her phone.
“I think I have something.”
Adrian came closer.
She searched.
Found it.
The label showed an address in Newark.
A warehouse.
But that was not the important part.
A handwritten note appeared beneath Daniel Winters’s name.
D.W. — PERSONAL.
Below it were four digits.
Adrian stared.
“Another room?”
Emma shook her head.
“There is no Room 421.”
“Then what?”
She enlarged the image.
Something had been written faintly beneath the number.
Three letters.
E.C.
Emma Cole.
Her own initials.
Her mouth went dry.
Adrian looked at her.
“You said you never saw the package after delivery?”
“No.”
“Who collected it upstairs?”
“I don’t know.”
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A text.
ONLY EMMA.
Another arrived.
BRING THE DRIVE.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
Emma’s heart began pounding.
Then the third message appeared.
A photograph.
Daniel Winters sat tied to a chair.
Alive.
Behind him was a digital clock.
May you like
And beneath the image were five words:
COME ALONE OR HE DIES.
