Chapter 6: Before the Investigators Arrive
Daniel typed a reply and put the phone away.
"We have about forty minutes."
"Until what?"
"Until two people arrive who will want to speak with you.
Formally." He moved to the library door and looked out into the foyer.
Empty.
"Vanessa's federal contact isn't an investigator.
He's a consultant — someone the Vance family has used for years to monitor the shape of inquiries and redirect attention when needed.
He has no actual authority.
But he will arrive with paperwork that looks official, and he will try to take possession of whatever you have."
Emily felt the cold move through her.
"He can't do that legally."
"He can't.
But by the time you've established that, the documents are already in his hands and the chain of custody is broken." Daniel turned back to her.
"Where is the backup copy?"
"I told you—"
"I know what you told me.
I'm asking again because forty minutes is not very long and trust is a luxury we don't have tonight." He crossed the room and stopped two feet from her.
"I have spent twenty-two months trying to build a case that doesn't implicate me in something I didn't do.
I found you because I was looking for the Meridian records.
I arranged to have you placed on the gala staff roster three weeks ago because I needed to speak with you in a controlled environment." He paused.
"I did not arrange for Vanessa to be here tonight.
That was not part of the plan.
She found out you'd be here through someone I have not yet identified."
Emily stared at him.
"You placed me on the roster."
"Yes."
"You've been watching me."
"I've been trying to reach you.
There's a difference." He held her gaze.
"I know the difference matters to you.
I'm not asking you to dismiss it.
I'm asking you to decide, in the next thirty seconds, whether what I've told you tonight is consistent with someone who wants to bury those records or someone who needs them to survive."
The library was very quiet.
Emily thought about the card.
The name on it — she had seen it once, in a footnote of the Meridian incorporation documents.
A name attached to an outside auditor who had flagged the account and been quietly removed from the engagement three weeks later.
Someone who had tried to raise the alarm from inside and been cut out.
She thought about the man at the side door.
The way Vanessa had looked at him.
*Get her out of here.
Now.* Not *call the police*.
Not *have her arrested*.
*Get her out.* Because an arrest would mean a statement, and a statement would mean the records came up in a legal context, and that was the one thing Vanessa could not allow.
"There's a storage unit," Emily said.
"East side of the city.
Unit 114.
The key is in a envelope taped to the underside of the third drawer in the staff locker room, second locker from the left."
Daniel was already moving.
He went to the writing desk in the corner of the library and picked up the phone on it — a landline, old, heavy.
He dialed from memory.
"It's me," he said when someone answered.
"East side storage facility.
Unit 114.
I need someone there in twenty minutes.
Don't touch anything.
Just make sure no one else gets in." He listened.
"I know.
Go now."
He set the phone down.
"Who was that?" Emily asked.
"Someone I trust more than most." He turned.
"My father's attorney.
He's been holding documents related to the Meridian account in escrow for fourteen months — documents my father gathered before he d*ed.
Documents that corroborate everything you copied." He paused.
"My father was the outside auditor who flagged the account.
The one they removed."
Emily sat down in the chair Daniel had vacated.
She didn't plan to.
Her legs simply decided.
"Your father," she said.
"He d*ed eight months after they cut him from the engagement.
The official cause was cardiac.
He was fifty-three years old and had no history of heart disease." Daniel's voice was flat and careful in the way voices get when a person has said a thing many times and learned to say it without falling apart.
"I can't prove it was anything other than what the death certificate says.
But I know what he was working on when it happened.
And I know that two days before he d*ed, he called his attorney and had a sealed package delivered."
The room felt different now.
Smaller.
More serious.
"What was in the package?" Emily asked.
"The same thing you have.
But from the inside." He looked at her steadily.
"Together, what you copied and what he gathered form a complete record.
Either one alone is strong.
Together, they're irrefutable."
A sound from the foyer.
Footsteps — more than one person, moving quickly.
Daniel looked at the door.
"That's too soon."
Emily was already on her feet.
The library door opened.
It wasn't Vanessa's consultant.
It was Mrs.
Alderton — the silver-haired woman from the foyer — and beside her, a younger man in a dark jacket with a federal identification badge already in his hand.
"Miss Porter," he said.
"My name is Agent Reyes.
I've been assigned to the Vance Logistics inquiry for the past seven months." He looked at Daniel, then back at Emily.
"I got a call twenty minutes ago that you were here.
May you like
I came as fast as I could." He paused.
"Before anyone else did."
