Chapter 11 - THE NETWORK
By the next morning, the company’s executive floor was under a preservation order.
No computer could be wiped.
No server could be replaced.
No employee with administrator access could leave with a company device.
Martin called it an overreaction.
Nathan called it Tuesday.
In less than a week, his standards for normal had collapsed completely.
A forensic technology team arrived before eight.
Helen Ward approved their access after the board’s independent counsel reviewed the pacemaker monitor report.
Martin objected loudly.
Nathan watched from the hallway while Martin argued that the remote maintenance session could have been automated.
The forensic lead, a woman named Leah Morgan, answered without looking impressed.
“Automated sessions do not authenticate using an employee credential.”
Martin stopped speaking.
Leah continued.
“The session used a Brooks Holdings network account assigned to infrastructure administration.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“Whose account?”
“We do not know yet.”
Martin turned toward him.
“You should not be involved in this.”
Nathan looked at him.
“My grandfather died six hours after someone from this building accessed his medical monitor.”
“You are involved because I am involved.”
Martin’s face hardened.
“This is exactly the kind of reckless accusation James feared.”
Nathan felt the old anger rise.
Then he remembered the trap.
Let them act.
He smiled instead.
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
Martin walked away.
Leah gave Nathan a sideways glance.
“That was either very mature or very annoying.”
“Can it be both?”
“Usually.”
By noon, investigators identified the network account.
MCRANE-ADM.
Melissa Crane.
Nathan felt vindicated for less than a minute.
Then Leah explained the problem.
Melissa’s credential had been used from a physical workstation on the sixth floor.
Melissa worked in Richard’s law office across town.
Nathan stared at the map.
“So someone stole her login?”
“Or she gave it to them.”
“What workstation?”
Leah hesitated.
“The CFO executive suite.”
Nathan looked through the glass toward Martin’s office.
“His computer?”
“No.”
“His assistant’s.”
Martin’s assistant was a woman named Dana Wells.
Dana had worked for him nine years.
She was calm when security brought her into the conference room.
She denied knowing Melissa.
She denied knowing anything about James’s home monitor.
She denied giving anyone access to her workstation.
Then Leah showed her a building-access record.
Dana had entered the executive floor at 11:42 p.m. the night before James died.
Dana’s face changed.
“I forgot my purse.”
“At midnight?” Leah asked.
“I had dinner downtown.”
“Who were you with?”
Dana swallowed.
“No one.”
Nathan watched her hands.
She kept twisting a ring around her finger.
Leah asked for consent to inspect Dana’s personal phone.
Dana refused.
Martin’s attorney ended the interview.
As Dana left, she looked at Nathan.
Not angrily.
Desperately.
Ten minutes later, Nathan received a message from an unknown number.
I DID NOT HURT YOUR GRANDFATHER.
He showed Marcus.
Marcus replied from Nathan’s phone.
Then help us understand who did.
The answer came immediately.
NOT HERE.
Nathan typed, Where?
Dana sent an address.
Marcus recognized it.
A church parking lot ten minutes away.
Richard objected.
Nathan went anyway.
This time Marcus was visible.
No pretending.
Dana arrived in a compact car and parked under a security light.
She stayed behind the wheel.
Nathan approached with Marcus several steps behind.
Dana lowered the window.
Her eyes were red.
“Martin will destroy me.”
Nathan leaned slightly toward the window.
“Did you access my grandfather’s monitor?”
“No.”
“Did someone use your computer?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Dana started crying silently.
Nathan waited.
“Paul Voss.”
Marcus stepped closer.
“How did he enter the building?”
“Martin brought him.”
Nathan’s stomach tightened.
“Why were you there?”
“Martin called me back.”
“He said a contract had to be processed before morning.”
“When I arrived, Voss was in Martin’s office.”
“What happened?”
“Martin gave me a folder and told me to print documents.”
“Then he asked for my laptop password because his system was updating.”
Dana wiped her face.
“I thought he was logging into a vendor portal.”
“Did you see Voss use the computer?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
“What did Martin do?”
“He stood behind him.”
Nathan felt nauseated.
“Did you see what was on the screen?”
“No.”
“But when I came back from the printer, I heard Voss say, ‘Once the old man is out, the kid collapses fast.’”
Nathan went cold.
“What did Martin say?”
Dana looked at him.
“He said, ‘David has already agreed to handle the birthday.’”
Marcus swore quietly.
Nathan’s hands clenched.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Dana laughed bitterly through tears.
“Because the next morning James was still alive.”
“I told myself they were talking about company control.”
“Then he died that night.”
“And Martin came to my desk the next morning and asked whether I loved my job.”
Nathan understood.
“He threatened you.”
“He did not have to.”
Dana reached into her purse.
Marcus immediately said, “Hands where I can see them.”
She froze.
“It is a phone.”
“Move slowly.”
Dana removed an old phone wrapped in a handkerchief.
“I started recording things after James died.”
Nathan stared at it.
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
She handed it to Marcus.
“There is one recording you need.”
“What is it?”
“Martin and Voss in the garage two days after the funeral.”
Marcus turned the phone on.
The audio was poor but clear enough.
Voss spoke first.
“The medical route was unnecessary.”
Nathan stopped breathing.
Martin answered.
“The old man would have launched the audit.”
Voss laughed softly.
“You panicked.”
“I solved the problem.”
“You created a larger one.”
Then Martin said something that made Nathan grip the car roof.
“The device session only changed monitoring settings.”
“It did not cause the arrest.”
Voss replied.
“That distinction will comfort no jury.”
Dana looked away while the recording continued.
Martin’s voice lowered.
“David does not know any of this.”
“Keep it that way.”
Nathan looked at Marcus.
His father had done terrible things.
But according to this recording, he had not known about the pacemaker access.
Then Voss said, “David knows enough.”
“He helped with Anna.
Nathan replayed the phrase three times after Dana left.
Marcus finally took the phone away from him.
“Enough.”
Nathan glared.
“I need to hear the exact words.”
“You know the exact words.”
“I need to know how he said them.”
Marcus softened slightly.
“Tone will not turn ambiguity into proof.”
Nathan hated him for being right.
Richard arrived twenty minutes later and listened once.
His reaction was different.
He sat down heavily.
“I remember James asking me about Anna’s accident two years ago.”
Nathan turned.
“What did he ask?”
“Whether old civil records could be reopened.”
“Why?”
“He had received an anonymous package.”
Nathan’s pulse quickened.
“What was in it?”
“A copy of a motel receipt with Anna’s name.”
“The night she died.”
Nathan stood.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“Because until this week, I did not know it mattered.”
“Where is it?”
“James kept it.”
“In the box?”
“Possibly.”
Marcus searched the contents list.
No motel receipt had been found.
Nathan felt the familiar frustration return.
Someone always seemed to have removed one piece before he arrived.
Dana’s recording at least gave them a phrase linking Voss to Anna.
But Marcus warned that phrases could be manipulated.
Voss might have meant debt collection.
He might have meant hiding evidence.
He might have meant surveillance.
Nathan looked at him.
“Or he might mean exactly what it sounds like.”
“Yes.”
Marcus did not soften it.
“That is why we investigate.”
Nathan nodded.
He looked toward the church windows.
His reflection stared back at him.
He suddenly saw the danger in wanting one answer too badly.
If Nathan decided his father had killed Anna before evidence supported it, David could tell the truth later and Nathan might refuse to hear it.
That would make Nathan exactly like the people he was fighting.
So he stored the anger.
Not dismissed.
Stored.
He would open it again when the facts deserved it.”
Nathan froze.
The recording clicked with static.
Martin’s voice became hard.
“Do not say her name here.”
Voss laughed.
“Still sentimental after eighteen years?”
Nathan leaned closer to the phone.
Martin replied.
“That was your mess, not mine.”
The audio ended.
Nathan could not move.
Dana whispered, “I am sorry.”
Nathan barely heard her.
He turned to Marcus.
“Anna was my mother.”
Marcus nodded.
“I know.”
Nathan felt his heartbeat in his throat.
“He helped with Anna.”
Marcus held up a hand.
“We do not know what that means.”
“Yes, we do.”
“No.”
Marcus’s voice became firm.
“We know Voss said it.”
“We do not know what he meant.”
Nathan stepped away from the car.
He wanted to call David.
He wanted to demand the truth.
He wanted to drive to Voss’s house.
He wanted to break something.
Marcus stopped him with one sentence.
“If you move before we understand this, you give them control of your next mistake.”
Nathan stood in the cold parking lot breathing through anger.
Then Dana said quietly, “There is more.”
Nathan turned.
She looked terrified.
“Martin keeps a second ledger.”
“Where?”
“I do not know.”
“But James found it once.”
“When?”
“Four days before he died.”
Nathan remembered Stephen’s account.
“What happened to it?”
Dana swallowed.
“Martin took it back.”
“How?”
“He told James that if he gave the ledger to police, Nathan would disappear before anyone could find him.”
Nathan went completely still.
Dana’s voice dropped.
May you like
“That is why your grandfather changed the will the next day.”
