Chapter 7 - Forty-Two Floors Up
Vance Global headquarters stood above the river in a tower of glass and steel that Flynn's father had once called a monument to discipline.
At 9:17 p.m., the building became a crime scene.
Selina had entered through the underground garage using Flynn's executive badge.
Security cameras showed a woman in a maintenance jacket stepping into a private elevator.
The elevator opened on the forty-second floor.
Then the cameras went dark.
I watched the live news coverage from my hospital bed.
Police vehicles surrounded the tower.
Reporters gathered behind barricades.
No one knew exactly why officers were inside.
Flynn did.
He called Camille every five minutes.
She answered none of the calls.
At 9:34, he sent a message through his lawyer.
She is going for the archive server.
Camille showed it to Alvarez.
The detective called Flynn directly.
I could hear his voice through the speakerphone.
"What archive server?"
"A secure executive system."
"What is on it?"
"Board communications, acquisition files, trust records, executive investigations."
Alvarez's eyes narrowed.
"Why would Selina know about it?"
There was a silence.
"Because I showed her."
Camille muttered something under her breath.
Alvarez remained calm.
"When?"
"Years ago."
"Why?"
"She was helping with a family foundation issue."
"Mr. Vance, did Selina ever work for Vance Global?"
"Not formally."
"Then why did she have access to confidential executive archives?"
"She did not have access."
"You just said you showed her."
"I showed her where it was."
"That is not better."
Flynn exhaled sharply.
"The server uses physical encryption keys."
"Where are the keys?"
"One is in my office safe."
"And the other?"
"With general counsel."
Alvarez stood.
"We need the safe code."
"I am not giving that over an open phone."
"Then you can give it to the tactical commander in person."
"I am already on my way."
"No."
"Detective."
"You are not entering that building."
Flynn's voice hardened.
"It is my company."
"Tonight it is an active police operation."
She ended the call.
I looked at Camille.
"What could be in that archive that Selina wants?"
"Something worth risking arrest."
Nathan sat near the window with his arms crossed.
"Or something that proves Flynn knew more than he says."
That possibility stayed with me.
At 9:52, officers reached the forty-second floor.
The executive corridor was empty.
Flynn's office door stood open.
The safe had been accessed.
One encryption key was missing.
Selina was gone.
"How?" I asked when Alvarez called.
"Service stairs."
"Did cameras catch her?"
"Not yet."
"She walked into a skyscraper surrounded by police and disappeared?"
"She knew the building."
"Because Flynn taught her."
Alvarez did not answer.
I did not need her to.
Everything Selina used against us had been handed to her by Flynn over years.
Passwords.
Properties.
Trust.
Private access.
He had not planned the attack.
But he had built the road she drove down.
At 10:11, a security officer found a maintenance jacket in a stairwell on the thirty-fourth floor.
At 10:26, police found Flynn's badge inside a trash can.
At 10:39, a building engineer reported an alarm in the underground loading dock.
Then a black sedan burst through the garage gate and disappeared onto Lower Wacker Drive.
The car belonged to Vance Global.
The driver had used an emergency fleet key stored in the security office.
Selina knew exactly where that key was too.
By midnight, her face was on every local news station.
Police called her a person of interest in an assault investigation and a suspect in evidence tampering, identity theft, and unlawful access to corporate systems.
They did not yet announce the conspiracy evidence.
Alvarez wanted the notebook authenticated first.
Megan remained unconscious.
The stolen encryption key remained missing.
The next morning, Vance Global's stock opened down eleven percent.
By noon, it was down nineteen.
The board called an emergency meeting.
Flynn's father had died four years earlier, but several directors still treated Flynn like the boy who had inherited the keys to their kingdom.
Now those directors wanted answers.
At 1:15 p.m., Camille entered my room carrying a thick document binder.
"You are about to become more important to them than you want to be."
I looked up.
"Why?"
She placed the binder on my lap.
"Your preferred shares."
"What about them?"
"Vance's counsel just filed notice that the descendant trust preparatory transfer was initiated six days before the stabbing."
I stared at her.
"Initiated by whom?"
"Flynn."
My chest tightened.
"He knew I was pregnant."
"Not necessarily."
"How could he initiate a pregnancy-triggered trust transfer without knowing?"
"Because someone sent the trustee a medical verification letter."
I felt the room tilt.
"Who?"
Camille handed me a copy.
The letterhead belonged to Lakeshore Women's Clinic.
It stated that Mabel Vance was approximately seven weeks pregnant.
The signature belonged to a physician I had never met.
"This is fake."
"The clinic confirmed it."
"Then who sent it?"
"The email came from an address designed to look like the clinic's administrative account."
I read the forwarding line.
Flynn had received the message six days before the stabbing.
Then he had initiated the transfer.
"Why did he not say anything to me?"
Camille's face was unreadable.
"That is a very good question."
I felt anger rise so fast it made me dizzy.
"He stood in my hospital room and said he did not know."
"He may have believed the letter was about estate planning rather than a confirmed pregnancy."
"It literally says pregnant."
"I know."
"Then he knew."
I reached for my phone.
Camille stopped me.
"Do not call him angry."
"I am not going to call him calm."
"Let me get the full record first."
I pulled my hand away.
"He looked me in the face and said if he had known."
"Mabel."
"He cried over those babies."
"I know."
"And now you are telling me he received a medical letter six days before he stabbed me."
Camille's voice sharpened.
"I am telling you we have evidence he received an email."
I looked at her.
She continued.
"Do not become Flynn."
The words hit me.
I went still.
"What?"
"Do not decide guilt before you know what happened because the first version makes you angry."
I hated her for saying it.
That was why she said it.
I took a breath.
Then another.
"Find out."
"Already doing it."
Two hours later, Detective Alvarez arrived with the answer.
Flynn had not opened the attachment.
His chief of staff had.
The chief of staff, Daniel Mercer, had summarized it as a trust compliance notice and placed the required transfer authorization in Flynn's electronic signature queue.
Flynn approved it with thirty-seven other documents that morning.
He had never read the medical verification.
"That is negligent," I said.
"Yes," Alvarez replied.
"But not the same as knowing."
"Correct."
I leaned back.
The relief I felt made me angry at myself.
Flynn's ignorance did not make him innocent.
It only meant he had not knowingly stabbed his pregnant wife.
That was a painfully low standard.
Alvarez placed another page on the table.
"The fake clinic email originated from a commercial VPN."
"Selina?"
"We found a draft of the message on the laptop from Unit 1704."
"So yes."
"Yes."
The fake medical letter had done two things.
It had triggered the trust process.
And it had created a record proving that a pregnancy existed before the attack.
I did not understand why Selina would do that if she wanted the pregnancy hidden.
Alvarez had the same question.
"It makes no sense," I said.
"Not yet."
"If she wanted me gone before the shares converted, why start the transfer herself?"
"Maybe she needed to know the exact consequences."
Camille looked up from the document.
"Or she needed the conversion to begin before Mabel died."
We both turned toward her.
"Why?" I asked.
Camille flipped through the old financing agreement.
"Because conversion rights are personal until triggered."
She found the clause.
"Once triggered, the converted shares become ordinary voting shares."
"And if I die?"
"They pass through your estate."
"To Nathan."
"Yes."
Nathan frowned.
"How does that help Selina?"
Camille looked at me.
"It does not."
Then her eyes sharpened.
"Unless your estate plan had been changed."
My skin went cold.
"It was not."
"Are you sure?"
"I signed nothing."
Camille immediately called my estate lawyer.
Ten minutes later, she ended the call with a face I did not like.
"There was an amendment submitted three days before the stabbing."
"Submitted by whom?"
"Electronically through your client portal."
"I did not submit anything."
Camille's voice was very quiet.
"The amendment names a charitable foundation as contingent beneficiary of your Vance shares."
"Which foundation?"
She turned the screen toward me.
The Selina Cole Arts Foundation.
For one second, no one spoke.
Then Nathan stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
"She forged Mabel's estate plan?"
Camille looked furious now.
"She tried."
"Tried?"
"The amendment was never valid because it lacked witness verification."
I stared at Selina's foundation name.
The plan was becoming clear.
Trigger my share conversion.
Forge my estate documents.
Push Flynn into attacking me.
If I died, Selina expected the shares to pass to her foundation.
She had built a scheme around my death.
Then the hospital phone rang.
Dr. Reed answered from the doorway.
His expression changed.
"Yes, send her up."
I looked at him.
"Who?"
He turned toward me.
"Megan Price is awake."
My pulse jumped.
"She wants to speak to police."
Alvarez stood.
"Where is she?"
"Another floor."
Dr. Reed paused.
May you like
"And she says Selina did not plan this alone."
