Chapter 8 - The Locked Conference Room
The fire alarm never sounded.
That told Maya the smoke was intentional.
Ethan grabbed a metal chair and smashed the narrow safety glass beside the door handle. The first hit cracked it. The second broke through.
Smoke filled the room faster.
“Stay low,” he said.
“I know.”
Maya wrapped her sleeve over her mouth and crawled toward the wall.
Ethan reached through the broken glass and pulled the release.
Nothing.
“Electronic lock,” he coughed.
Maya looked at the ceiling vent.
Gray smoke poured from it.
“Not a fire,” she said. “Smoke canister.”
Her phone had no signal.
Ethan’s did.
He called building security.
No answer.
Then someone outside the door spoke.
“Give me the drive.”
The voice was distorted through the metal.
Maya and Ethan looked at each other.
Ethan whispered, “Do you have it?”
Maya slipped the portable drive into the lining of her borrowed blazer.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He shouted toward the door, “Come get it.”
A second later, the lock released.
Ethan kicked the door outward.
A man in a maintenance uniform stumbled backward.
Maya ran.
The man grabbed her blazer.
The fabric tore.
The drive fell to the floor.
He lunged for it.
Ethan tackled him into a filing cabinet.
Maya snatched the drive and sprinted down the hall.
By the time actual security arrived, the man was gone through a service stairwell.
But he left something behind.
A temporary contractor badge.
The name was fake.
The company wasn’t.
North Bell Logistics.
Maya turned the badge over in her hand. It was still warm. That detail bothered her more than it should have. Whoever had worn it had been close enough to touch her, close enough to know which drive mattered, and confident enough to enter a secured corporate floor in disguise. This was not a desperate thief improvising. It was procedure. Someone had planned her movements, her escape routes, even the timing of the smoke.
For the first time, Maya understood that the investigation was no longer about discovering who had stolen money. It was about finding out how many people had been trained to protect the theft.
North Bell Logistics.
Rebecca met them in the lobby with police and two furious attorneys.
Maya handed her the drive.
“Make three copies. Different buildings.”
Rebecca nodded.
Ethan leaned against the wall, breathing hard. “There’s more.”
He held up his phone.
During the struggle, it had recorded forty-seven seconds of audio.
Most of it was coughing and noise.
But near the end, the attacker had shouted into an earpiece.
“We lost the Reed girl. Tell Mercer.”
Everyone went quiet.
Rebecca looked at Maya.
Maya looked across the lobby.
May you like
Grant Mercer stood on the second-floor balcony.
He was staring directly at her.
