Chapter 8 - THE MAN WHO WAS SENT TO ME
I met Jason at a cybersecurity conference in Boston.
At least, that was the story I had believed for three years.
He was standing behind me in a coffee line.
I dropped my conference badge.
He picked it up.
He joked that a security expert should protect her credentials better.
I laughed.
He bought my coffee.
Two days later, we had dinner.
Three years later, I almost married him.
Now Marcus checked the conference registration records.
Jason had never registered.
He had purchased a one-day guest pass at 8:14 that morning.
Forty minutes before he met me.
The payment came from Cedar Meridian Holdings.
The shell company my mother later funded.
Except Cedar Meridian supposedly had not been created yet.
Naomi checked again.
The company had existed under another name.
They renamed it afterward.
Jason had been paid to attend the conference.
Possibly to meet me.
I called him.
He answered on the second ring.
“What?”
No hello.
No apology.
Just anger.
“Did you meet me by accident?”
Silence.
“Jason.”
“We’ve been through enough today.”
“Did you meet me by accident?”
He exhaled.
“No.”
The answer hurt less than expected.
Maybe because there was so little left to break.
“Who sent you?”
“My father.”
“Your father is dead.”
Another silence.
Then Jason said.
“That’s what I told you.”
I stood.
Across the table, Naomi’s eyes narrowed.
“Is he alive?”
Jason ended the call.
We immediately searched.
His father, Stephen Cole, had supposedly died in a boating accident seventeen years earlier.
No body recovered.
Death legally declared years later.
Classic disappearance.
Then Marcus found a photograph from six months ago.
A Voss Capital charity event in Toronto.
In the background stood a man identified as Stephen Carver.
Older.
Gray-haired.
But unmistakably Jason’s father.
Alive.
My fiancé’s dead father had spent seventeen years working under another name.
For Gregory Voss.
The story deepened fast after that.
Stephen Cole had been part of the original Northstar group.
When Grandma and Marcus’s father tried exposing the fraud, Stephen disappeared.
My father remained.
Gregory Voss grew richer.
And years later, Stephen’s son appeared at my conference and began dating me.
They had been waiting for Grandma’s trust to mature.
My thirty-fifth birthday was three years away.
But marriage could create new legal arguments around beneficiary rights and marital claims.
Especially if I signed documents voluntarily.
Especially if they could portray me as financially unstable during a future divorce.
Especially if Jason controlled certain accounts.
Everything aligned.
The fake affair evidence.
The loan.
The marriage.
The trust.
They planned to weaken me financially and legally, then fight over assets they believed I did not even know existed.
But they had miscalculated one thing.
I did know how systems worked.
And every conspiracy was a system.
Systems left logs.
That evening, CipherStone’s incident team traced Colin Avery’s last corporate access.
He had tried to open a folder called CLIENT ESCROW KEYS.
He failed.
Then he accessed Northstar.
Then he copied one small encrypted index file.
Not enough to expose our clients.
Enough to know who we were investigating.
Gregory Voss.
Jason’s father.
My parents.
Others.
“They know what we know,” Marcus said.
“No.”
I stared at the screen.
“They know what we knew yesterday.”
Naomi smiled slightly.
For the first time since the wedding.
We had the flash drive now.
They did not know.
We had Grandma’s original codicil.
They did not know.
We knew Stephen Cole was alive.
They might not know we knew.
Information had shifted.
For the first time, the advantage belonged to me.
Then Terrence called.
Sydney was missing.
Not metaphorically.
Her phone was off.
Her car had been found outside a train station.
No one had seen her board a train.
At first, I assumed she was running.
Then Terrence sent me a photograph police had found inside her car.
A broken phone.
Blood on the passenger seat.
Not much.
But enough.
My mother called thirty seconds later.
She was crying.
“Meline.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Sydney?”
“I don’t know.”
Then her voice dropped.
“Your father does.”
I went cold.
“Where is he?”
“He left.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
I almost shouted.
Then Mom whispered.
“He took the Northstar box.”
“What Northstar box?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“Your grandmother gave me something before she died.”
“What?”
“A metal lockbox.”
“What was inside?”
“I never opened it.”
I did not believe her.
Then she said.
“Your father spent fifteen years looking for the key.”
My pulse quickened.
“Why would Dad take it now?”
“Because Sydney had the key.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Another layer.
“How?”
“Your grandmother gave it to her.”
“Why Sydney?”
Mom’s breathing became uneven.
“She didn’t.”
“What?”
“She gave it to you.”
I stared at the wall.
“I never had a key.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“Your college graduation.”
I remembered Grandma’s gift.
A thin gold necklace.
A small star-shaped pendant.
I had not worn it in years.
It was in a jewelry box inside my bedroom closet.
A North Star.
I ran.
The box was empty.
The necklace was gone.
And the only person who had been inside my bedroom recently besides me was Jason.
Sydney never had the key.
Jason did.
Which meant my father had not disappeared to find Sydney.
He had disappeared to find Jason.
May you like
And if Sydney’s blood was inside that car, I suddenly had no idea which one of them was running.
And which one was hunting.
