Chapter 5 - A Message That Should Have Been Impossible
They did not examine the USB at the storage facility.
Adrian insisted on that, and for once Grace did not argue.
He did not take it from her either.
That mattered.
Grace placed it inside a zippered pocket in her tote and kept the bag against her body throughout the drive downtown.
The destination was not what she expected.
No fortress.
No nightclub.
No mansion filled with armed men.
Adrian brought her to a cybersecurity firm occupying the eighteenth floor of a glass building near the river.
The receptionist looked up.
“Mr. Vale.”
“Is Lena in?”
“She’s expecting you.”
Grace looked at him.
“You called ahead?”
“From the elevator.”
“You text extremely fast.”
“One of my few admirable skills.”
Lena Ortiz was forty, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by Adrian Vale.
Grace liked her immediately.
“Put it there,” Lena said, pointing to an isolated workstation.
Grace placed the USB beside the keyboard.
Lena glanced at Adrian.
“You touch anything?”
“No.”
“Miracle.”
Adrian leaned against the wall.
Grace almost laughed.
Lena inserted the drive into a disconnected system.
Nothing appeared.
Then a password prompt.
“Encrypted,” she said.
“How long?” Adrian asked.
“Could be ten minutes. Could be ten years.”
Grace stepped closer.
On screen:
PASSWORD HINT: WHAT SHE ALWAYS READ WHEN SHE WAS AFRAID
Her throat tightened.
Adrian looked at her.
“You know?”
Grace typed:
JANE EYRE
Access granted.
Three folders appeared.
CLAIMS.
ROUTES.
GH.
Grace stared at the initials.
“GH,” Lena said. “You?”
“Probably.”
She opened it.
Photographs filled the screen.
Grace entering work.
Grace visiting her mother in the hospital.
Grace buying groceries.
Grace sitting alone beside Lake Michigan.
Dates spanning seven years.
Grace’s stomach turned.
“He watched me.”
Adrian moved beside her.
“Some are Daniel’s.”
“How do you know?”
“The file metadata.”
Lena clicked.
Different cameras.
Different devices.
Some photographs had been taken by Daniel.
Others by someone else.
Marcus?
Then Lena opened a text file.
Only one sentence.
If Grace ever finds this, tell her leaving him saved more lives than her own.
Grace read it twice.
“What does that mean?”
Lena opened another document.
A list of freight shipments appeared.
Pharmaceuticals.
Medical equipment.
Luxury electronics.
Insurance claims filed after alleged thefts.
Shell companies.
Dates.
Payments.
Adrian stepped closer.
“This is Daniel’s evidence.”
“Against Marcus?” Grace asked.
“Against several people.”
“Including you?”
The room went silent.
Adrian looked at her.
“No.”
“Would you tell me if it did?”
“Yes.”
“Why should I believe that?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Grace hated how often he gave her the answer she least expected.
Lena interrupted.
“There’s a video file.”
She clicked it.
Daniel appeared on screen.
Alive.
Younger.
Tired.
He sat in what looked like a parked car.
“If you’re watching this,” he began, “then I probably failed.”
Adrian stopped moving.
Grace looked at him.
He stared at his brother.
Daniel continued.
“Marcus Holloway isn’t running the operation. He’s managing it. The person above him is inside Vale Logistics.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“I don’t know who,” Daniel said. “Every time I get close, records disappear.”
Grace gripped the desk.
Daniel looked directly into the camera.
“Grace Holloway may be the only person who can prove where the money started.”
Grace whispered, “How?”
Daniel answered as if he could hear her.
“Marcus used her identity.”
The room changed.
Lena paused the video.
Grace stared.
“What?”
Adrian straightened.
“Play it.”
Daniel continued.
“Accounts. Signatures. Companies. She doesn’t know. I checked. She was twenty-three when the first shell corporation was filed.”
Grace felt nauseated.
“No.”
“Her name is on everything.”
“No.”
“Marcus built his escape route using his wife.”
Grace stepped backward.
Her shoulder hit the wall.
Adrian moved toward her, then stopped himself.
“Grace.”
She shook her head.
“He used my name?”
Lena searched the files.
A corporate registration appeared.
HOLLOWAY CONSULTING GROUP LLC
Managing member:
Grace Holloway.
Another.
GH Transit Holdings.
Another.
A bank authorization.
Signature.
Grace recognized it.
Her signature.
But she had never signed the document.
“That’s forged.”
Lena nodded.
“Looks copied.”
Grace remembered hundreds of papers Marcus had asked her to sign during their marriage.
Tax forms.
Insurance documents.
Lease renewals.
She had trusted him.
Daniel resumed speaking.
“I tried to warn her once. Marcus caught me inside the house before I could.”
The photograph.
Grace asleep.
Daniel standing beside the bed.
“He was trying to tell me,” she whispered.
Adrian’s voice was rough.
“Yes.”
“I never woke up.”
“No.”
Daniel looked exhausted on screen.
“I moved the evidence into something Marcus would never search because he never understood Grace at all.”
The camera shifted.
Jane Eyre.
Grace closed her eyes.
Marcus had mocked her for rereading it.
“Same miserable woman, same miserable house,” he used to say.
Daniel had noticed.
Daniel understood what Marcus had not.
The things people dismissed about Grace were the things that had saved her.
The video continued.
“If something happens to me, Grace needs to know one more thing.”
Daniel hesitated.
Adrian went rigid.
“Adrian, if you find this, don’t make her part of your war.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“She already survived one man who believed he owned her. Don’t become another.”
The video ended.
Silence.
Grace looked at Adrian.
He looked away first.
That frightened her more than anything.
Because Daniel had known his brother.
Known him well enough to leave a warning.
“What war?” Grace asked.
Adrian’s eyes returned to her.
“There are people inside my organization who helped Marcus.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
“Then everyone around you is potentially dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Including you.”
“Yes.”
Grace picked up her tote.
“I’m leaving.”
Adrian did not stop her.
She reached the door.
“Grace.”
She turned.
His expression was controlled again.
But grief had entered it.
“You should make copies of everything.”
“I will.”
“Keep one somewhere I can’t access.”
She stared.
“Why would you tell me that?”
“Because Daniel was right.”
“About what?”
Adrian looked toward the frozen image of his brother.
“You escaped one man who treated your choices like they belonged to him.”
He faced her.
“I won’t become another.”
Grace left.
She walked four blocks before she realized Adrian had not sent anyone after her.
For the first time, she wondered whether the most frightening thing about Adrian Vale was not that he was dangerous.
It was that a dangerous man had just handed her the freedom to walk away.
Her phone buzzed.
Marcus.
Now you know why I need you.
Another message followed.
Adrian will tell you I’m the monster. Ask him who ordered Daniel to stop investigating.
Grace stopped beneath a traffic light.
Then a third message arrived.
A photograph.
Adrian and Daniel arguing outside a warehouse eighteen months earlier.
Timestamped three days before Daniel died.
Beneath it:
Your hero killed his own brother.
Grace looked back toward the glass tower.
May you like
And suddenly she no longer knew which man was lying.
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