Chapter 16 - The Missing Drives
The first report said Calvin had suffered a cardiac event.
The second said that was not confirmed.
The third said he had been found conscious but confused on the floor of the records room beside an overturned chair.
No one knew whether he had fallen, fainted, or been attacked.
By ten fifteen, paramedics had taken him to another hospital.
By ten twenty, the missing hard drives became the more urgent problem.
They contained mirrored financial records from the forensic audit.
At least, that was what Calvin believed.
What he did not know was that the auditors had created encrypted off-site copies before the drives ever entered Sterling Axis headquarters.
Mara told me that with the first trace of satisfaction I had seen all morning.
"So whoever took them stole decoys?"
"Not decoys."
"They contain real data."
"But not the only data."
"Good."
Natalie sat across from me with both hands around a paper cup of water.
"Dominic knows the records room."
Mara looked at her.
"Did he still have building access after the board suspended him?"
"His executive badge should have been disabled."
"Should have been?"
Natalie looked embarrassed.
"There are service entrances."
"Which ones?"
"Loading dock."
"Underground parking."
"The laboratory side entrance."
Mara made another call.
I watched Natalie.
"Why do you know all of this?"
"I worked there."
"You were a communications consultant."
She looked away.
"That was the title on paper."
"What did you actually do?"
"Whatever Dominic needed."
"That is not a job description."
"It was with him."
Her answer contained something I recognized too well.
Not innocence.
But the exhaustion of a person who had slowly replaced judgment with compliance.
I refused to confuse recognition with forgiveness.
"Did you delete records for him?"
She stared at the cup.
"Once."
Mara stopped speaking on the phone.
"What records?"
Natalie swallowed.
"Emails between Dominic and Calvin."
"When?"
"Three months ago."
"Why?"
"Dominic said Calvin was threatening him."
"Did you keep copies?"
A long pause.
"Yes."
Mara ended her call.
"Where?"
"An encrypted cloud account."
"Credentials?"
"I will give them to my lawyer."
Lena nodded.
"We will arrange a preserved production."
Mara accepted that.
"What was in the emails?"
Natalie looked at me.
"Calvin demanded five million dollars to stay quiet about the Rowan patent chain."
"Blackmail."
"That is what Dominic called it."
"What did Calvin call it?"
"A settlement of obligations."
I almost laughed.
Criminal language was often polite when written by rich people.
"Did Dominic pay?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"Calvin threatened to trigger a compliance review."
Mara and I looked at each other.
Six weeks ago, quality control had flagged questionable lots.
Around the same time, Calvin and Dominic were fighting over money.
Maybe the product crisis had not begun as a patient safety issue at all.
Maybe it had been leverage.
"Did Calvin create the problem or exploit it?"
Natalie shook her head.
"I don't know."
"Did Dominic?"
"I don't know."
"Then what do you know?"
She looked exhausted.
"I know both of them stopped caring whether the truth hurt people."
That sentence was the first thing Natalie said all morning that sounded completely clean.
My phone rang.
Nora.
I answered instantly.
"Audrey, you need to come to the NICU."
My body went cold.
"Which baby?"
"Chloe."
I was already moving.
"What happened?"
"Her temperature is rising and her oxygen needs increased."
The room tilted.
"Is it infection?"
"We don't know yet."
"I'm coming."
I ended the call.
Mara reached for the wheelchair.
Natalie stood.
"Audrey."
I looked at her.
"I'm sorry."
I had no room inside me for her apology.
"Then help Mara."
I left.
The trip down the corridor felt endless.
When the NICU doors opened, I saw three nurses around Chloe's incubator.
Dr. Hart stood at the foot of the bed reviewing a monitor.
I stopped so hard the wheelchair almost jerked sideways.
"Tell me."
Dr. Hart came over.
"Her temperature is elevated."
"How high?"
"One hundred point six Fahrenheit."
"And oxygen?"
"She needs more support than she did this morning."
"Is it the connector?"
"We do not know."
"But it could be."
"Yes."
The word hollowed me out.
"What are you doing?"
"Blood cultures."
"Broad-spectrum antibiotics."
"A full sepsis evaluation."
"Can I touch her?"
"Not right this second."
I hated the answer.
I hated the incubator.
I hated the plastic wall.
I hated every person who had ever treated a supply certificate as a number on a spreadsheet.
"Where is Liam?"
"Stable."
"Any fever?"
"No."
I watched Chloe's chest move faster than before.
"Baby, stay with me."
My voice broke.
"Stay with me."
For the next hour, nothing outside the NICU existed.
Mara did not interrupt.
Everett arrived but remained across the room until I looked at him.
I did not ask him to leave.
I did not ask him to come closer either.
He stood where I could see him.
That was enough.
At noon, Dr. Hart told us Chloe's white blood cell count was elevated.
At twelve thirty, her oxygen requirement rose again.
At one ten, she stabilized.
At one forty, the first rapid culture signal suggested bacterial growth.
My knees shook even though I was sitting down.
"What organism?"
"Too early."
"Can you link it to the connector?"
"Not yet."
"How long?"
"We may know more by tonight."
I stared at Chloe.
"She was stable before that component."
Dr. Hart crouched beside me.
"Premature infants can develop infections for many reasons."
"I know."
"I will not tell you it is the product until evidence supports that."
"Good."
I looked at her.
"And I will not tell myself it isn't just because that would hurt less."
Her eyes softened.
"That's fair."
At two, Mara entered quietly.
She waited until Dr. Hart stepped away.
"They found one of the missing drives."
I did not look away from Chloe.
"Where?"
"In a trash compactor room at Sterling Axis."
"Destroyed?"
"Crushed."
"Who put it there?"
"Security footage shows a person in maintenance clothing."
"Face?"
"Covered."
"Badge?"
"Stolen from a contractor."
I closed my eyes.
"Anything useful?"
"A loading dock camera caught the person's vehicle."
"Whose?"
Mara hesitated.
"Registered to Peter Lang's wife."
I turned toward her.
"Peter is back?"
"Maybe."
"Or someone has his wife's car."
"Exactly."
"Where is his wife?"
"At home."
"Car reported stolen?"
"She says Peter took it when he left."
I stared at Mara.
Peter had not fled toward Grand Cayman.
He had remained close enough to enter Sterling Axis.
"Why destroy a drive if the auditors have backups?"
"Maybe he did not know about the backups."
"Or the drive contained something else."
Mara nodded.
"That is what the auditors think."
"What?"
"The three missing drives were not all part of their mirror set."
"What were the others?"
"One was a legacy archive from Dominic's executive office."
"And the third?"
"Calvin's personal board archive."
My attention sharpened.
"So Peter may have taken evidence belonging to both of them."
"Yes."
"Where are the other drives?"
"Unknown."
My phone buzzed.
A text from Natalie.
PETER CALLED ME AGAIN.
I showed Mara.
A second message appeared.
HE WANTS TO TRADE THE DRIVES FOR A WAY OUT.
Then a third.
HE SAYS HE WILL ONLY TALK TO AUDREY.
Mara shook her head immediately.
"No."
I kept reading.
Natalie sent one final message.
HE SAYS ONE DRIVE HAS THE ORIGINAL VIDEO FROM THE NIGHT DOMINIC MADE THE PLAN.
"What plan?" I whispered.
Mara did not answer.
I called Natalie.
She picked up.
"What video?"
"I don't know."
"Where does Peter want to meet?"
"He won't tell me unless you agree."
"Agree to what?"
Natalie took a breath.
"He wants your grandfather's plane."
I almost laughed.
"Absolutely not."
"He says he needs to leave the country."
"Then he can surrender to police and ask for protection."
"I told him that."
"What did he say?"
Natalie's voice dropped.
"He said the police are not who he is afraid of."
"Then who?"
A pause.
"Calvin."
I looked across the NICU.
Everett was standing near the windows.
His phone rang at the same moment.
He answered.
His face changed.
Then he looked at me.
"Calvin is awake."
"Good."
Everett did not move.
"No."
His voice went flat.
"He just told investigators you ordered the certificate changes."
For one second, I did not understand the sentence.
"Me?"
"He claims Aster Ridge pressured Sterling Axis to ship the products to protect revenue before the twins were born."
I stared at him.
"That is insane."
"Yes."
"I didn't even know I controlled Aster Ridge."
"We know that."
"Can we prove it?"
Everett looked at Mara.
Mara's face told me the answer was more complicated than it should have been.
"What?"
She spoke carefully.
"There is an email in the company archive authorizing shipment in the name of Aster Ridge."
"Signed by who?"
"You."
My blood went cold.
Another forged document.
Except this one was dated six weeks before my delivery.
May you like
Six weeks before anyone could claim I had been unconscious.
And according to the metadata, it had been sent from my personal email account.
