Chapter 8 - The Office After Midnight
Police entered Harlow Shipping first.
Derek was not in his office.
But several hard drives were missing.
A trash bin contained partially burned paper.
A company laptop sat on the desk with its drive physically damaged.
“This is evidence destruction,” Ortiz said.
I stood behind the security line.
“You told me not to come.”
“You came anyway.”
“With my lawyer.”
Sarah lifted a hand.
Ortiz sighed.
“You’re impossible.”
“I’m compliance.”
“That’s apparently worse.”
Security logs showed Derek had entered the executive floor, records archive and server room.
Then he had taken the service elevator into the parking garage.
Cameras caught him carrying two bags.
No vehicle exit followed.
“He’s still in the building?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
Officers searched floor by floor.
At 11:48 p.m., they found the bags.
Inside were financial files.
Cash.
Two passports.
Mine and Derek’s.
And the insurance policy.
But Derek himself was gone.
Then a security engineer discovered an emergency tunnel connecting the lower garage to an adjacent warehouse owned by a Harlow subsidiary.
Derek had used it.
The warehouse camera showed him entering a rideshare vehicle twenty minutes earlier.
Police traced the ride.
Destination: Constance’s house.
My phone rang.
Constance.
I answered immediately.
“Are you home?”
“Yes.”
“Lock the doors.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Derek may be coming there.”
Silence.
Then:
“He’s already here.”
The line went dead.
Police moved.
I stayed in the command vehicle because Ortiz refused to let me closer.
Those seventeen minutes lasted longer than the six years of my marriage.
Then Ortiz’s radio crackled.
Subject detained.
No injuries.
I covered my mouth.
When Derek emerged from his mother’s house in handcuffs, he looked nothing like the man who had controlled every room we shared.
No suit jacket.
No executive confidence.
No prepared audience.
Just a frightened man whose explanations had finally run out.
He saw me through the windshield.
For a second, our eyes met.
Then he smiled.
That smile frightened me more than anger would have.
Because I knew it.
It meant he believed he still had something left.
At the station, investigators discovered what.
Derek had not gone to Constance’s house to hide.
He had gone to retrieve a safe-deposit key.
Inside the associated box was a sealed envelope.
On the front, in my husband’s handwriting:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, OPEN THIS.
The contents would expose a secret larger than the attempted poisoning.
May you like
Because Derek had not been stealing only from me.
He had been stealing from Harlow Shipping for years.
