Chapter 10 - The Conference Room DoorCorporate security sealed every exit.
Elevators froze.
Stairwell doors locked from the outside.
Employees were instructed to remain at their desks under the explanation of a technical security incident.
Julian tracked the connection through the internal network.
Fourteenth floor.
The same conference center used for the first forged upload.
Federal agents moved toward the elevators.
I started to follow.
Victoria caught my arm.
“No.”
“I'm not asking permission.”
“And I'm not suggesting.”
“Victoria—”
“If Preston is physically upstairs, you stay here.”
I pulled free.
“He came into my home.”
“And that's precisely why you don't hand him the confrontation he wants.”
She was right.
I hated that.
So I remained in the crisis room, staring at the security feeds.
Agents entered the fourteenth-floor corridor.
Conference Room A.
Empty.
Conference Room B.
Empty.
Conference Room C.
Empty.
Then the camera outside Conference Room D flickered.
Black.
Julian frowned.
“They killed the feed.”
Agents approached the door.
Locked.
One of them forced it open.
Inside sat a laptop.
Connected.
Running.
No people.
Preston and Rebecca had created another decoy.
But this time, Julian smiled.
“Got you.”
“What?”
“The laptop is relaying another machine.”
He traced the signal.
Basement.
Parking level three.
Security cameras switched.
A black SUV accelerated toward the garage exit.
The gate dropped.
The SUV didn't stop.
It smashed through.
Marcus muttered, “You've got to be kidding me.”
Police cruisers immediately pursued.
Torres called from the road.
“Claire, stay where you are.”
“That seems to be everyone's favorite sentence today.”
“I'm serious.”
“So am I.”
The chase ended eighteen minutes later.
The SUV was found abandoned beneath an interstate overpass.
Again.
No Rebecca.
No Preston.
Only two burner phones.
And a note taped to the steering wheel.
You still think this is about money.
When Torres read it to me, something shifted.
“What if he's right?”
Marcus stared at me.
“You think Preston doesn't care about five million dollars?”
“Oh, he cares.”
“But?”
“What if the money is Rebecca's goal?”
“And Preston's?”
“Me.”
The entire fraud suddenly looked different.
Rebecca needed my credentials.
Preston needed access to my life.
Their partnership worked only while those objectives aligned.
But people like Preston eventually stopped caring about plans.
They cared about control.
That evening, police searched every known address associated with him.
Nothing.
Rebecca's credit cards went silent.
Her bank account hadn't moved.
They had cash.
Fake documents.
Planning.
And, according to Evelyn, years of resentment connecting them.
Then Natalie appeared.
The woman Evelyn had told us about.
Preston's former fiancée.
She called Victoria after seeing a news report describing Rebecca as a “person of interest” in an attempted corporate fraud investigation.
Natalie agreed to speak only by video.
Her face appeared on my laptop shortly after ten.
She looked about forty.
Dark hair.
Tired eyes.
No makeup.
The moment she saw me, she said, “He told you dinner mattered, didn't he?”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“What?”
“Preston. He creates rules.”
I didn't answer.
Natalie continued.
“For me it was laundry.”
“What about it?”
“Towels had to be folded a particular way. He said if I couldn't follow something simple, I couldn't be trusted with anything important.”
My throat tightened.
“The rules aren't rules,” she said. “They're tests.”
“Of obedience.”
“Yes.”
She described escalation identical to mine.
Criticism.
Financial monitoring.
Isolation.
Threats disguised as jokes.
Then physical violence.
One night he shoved her against a refrigerator hard enough to fracture her wrist.
She called police.
His parents intervened.
Natalie withdrew the complaint and disappeared.
“I was ashamed for years,” she said.
“You survived.”
“I ran.”
“Sometimes those are the same thing.”
She gave a sad smile.
Then she said something that mattered.
“Preston keeps trophies.”
“What kind?”
“Things from women.”
My stomach tightened.
“He took a bracelet from me.”
“Why?”
“After I left, he mailed me a picture of himself wearing it around his fingers. Said I had forgotten something that belonged to him.”
You forgot something.
The envelope on my windshield.
A pattern.
“What did he take from me?” I whispered.
Marcus heard.
“What?”
I stood.
“My safe.”
“No, Rebecca emptied it.”
“Not everything.”
I called Daniel and asked him to access camera footage from my penthouse.
We reviewed Rebecca's eighteen-minute visit frame by frame.
She entered the bedroom.
Opened the closet.
Removed documents.
Then stopped.
She looked toward my dresser.
Opened the top drawer.
Reached inside.
When she left, she was carrying something small.
My grandmother's watch.
Gold.
Inscribed.
The only piece of jewelry I owned that mattered emotionally.
I had assumed it was misplaced.
Now I knew.
Preston had sent Rebecca to take it.
Not for money.
For possession.
Natalie watched us through the video screen.
Her expression had turned pale.
“He'll contact you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he always gives the trophy back.”
“When?”
“When he thinks you're ready to come to him.”
My phone buzzed.
Every person in the room looked down.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
My grandmother's watch lay on a black table.
Beside it was a handwritten address.
An abandoned coastal restaurant thirty miles north.
Underneath, one sentence.
Come alone if you want back what belongs to you.
Marcus said, “Absolutely not.”
Victoria said, “Police.”
Natalie whispered, “That's what he wants.”
I stared at the photograph.
Then I smiled.
“So we'll give him exactly what he wants.”
Marcus looked horrified.
“You're not going there.”
“No.”
May you like
I picked up my phone.
“But he's going to believe I am.”
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