Chapter 8 - The Recorder
Marcus crossed the room and unplugged nothing.
“Leave it.”
Vivian looked furious enough to shatter glass. “That recorder was not there this morning.”
Ryan stared at the phone. “How did Daniel get into this floor?”
Vivian’s assistant had the answer within minutes.
Daniel’s badge had been used at 10:42 a.m.
Nobody remembered seeing him.
Security video showed why.
He had entered through the executive service elevator wearing a catering jacket and carrying two coffee trays.
Elena watched the footage twice.
“This isn’t intimidation,” she said.
Marcus nodded. “It’s collection.”
“Of what?” Ryan asked.
“Admissions. Accusations. Panic. Anything useful later.”
Vivian folded her arms. “He recorded me admitting to false transfers.”
“You admitted to forging Ryan’s signature too,” Elena said.
Ryan gave his mother a bleak look. “Hard to forget that part.”
Vivian did not apologize.
Instead she asked, “Why would Daniel want this now?”
Elena answered, “Because Harbor Seventeen is active again.”
The room went silent.
Nina called fifteen minutes later with a discovery from the lender audit.
Three current Vale Meridian renovation vendors had received unusually large advance payments over the past eighteen months.
All three vendors wired portions of those payments onward.
To Harbor Seventeen Holdings.
Ryan looked at Vivian. “You said this ended eleven years ago.”
“It did.”
“Then who restarted it?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena believed she might be telling the truth.
That was inconvenient.
By 2:00 p.m., Vale Meridian’s board had been notified that its internal security director was missing and company systems could be compromised. Ryan wanted to suspend Daniel immediately.
Vivian resisted.
“He will know we found the recorder.”
“He probably already knows,” Elena said.
Ryan looked at her. “What would you do?”
“Preserve access. Quietly duplicate logs. Stop money movement without announcing why. Then figure out who else is involved.”
Ryan nodded.
Vivian’s eyes cooled. “You are not running my company.”
Elena met her gaze. “I’m not trying to. I’m trying to understand why someone broke into mine.”
Marcus’s phone buzzed.
He read a message, then looked up.
“Police found Nina’s stolen notebook.”
“Where?” Elena asked.
“Inside Daniel Cross’s apartment.”
Ryan exhaled. “So that’s it.”
“No,” Marcus said.
He turned the screen around.
The apartment had been empty for at least two days.
No clothes. No toiletries. No computer.
But on the kitchen table sat Nina’s notebook, carefully placed beneath a brass key stamped with the number 17.
Ryan stared at the photo.
“That’s my father’s key.”
Elena’s pulse quickened.
Marcus swiped to the next image.
A handwritten note lay beside it.
May you like
Two words.
ASK RYAN.
