Chapter 7 - TWENTY-FOUR PERCENT
Darkness changes the size of a room.
One second, the storage unit had been a narrow rectangle filled with boxes and old furniture.
The next, it became angles, sounds, and unknown distance.
Morgan drew her sidearm.
"Federal officer," she shouted.
She was technically Navy counsel, not law enforcement, but the lie did what she needed.
The footsteps stopped.
Cho pulled Mrs. Marsh behind the desk.
I slipped the flash drive into the inside pocket of my suit.
A beam of light swept across the corridor.
Then another.
Someone was using a flashlight deliberately, keeping the beam low.
Morgan whispered, "Stay down."
I crouched beside the desk.
The scars across my back prickled with sweat.
My body remembered smoke before my mind did.
Dark compartment.
Failed power.
Metal screaming under heat.
I forced the memory away.
This was not the Resolute.
I was not trapped behind a bulkhead.
The storage unit had one entrance, but the rear wall was thin sheet metal separating adjacent units.
I could hear movement on the other side.
"Cho."
He looked at me.
I pointed toward the wall.
He listened.
His expression changed.
The people in the corridor were a distraction.
Someone was entering from the next unit.
I grabbed the heavy brass lamp from my mother's desk.
The side panel shuddered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the lower edge bent inward.
Morgan shifted her aim.
"Police are coming," Cho called.
A voice from the corridor answered.
"We're facility maintenance."
The lie was terrible.
"Then turn the lights on," Morgan said.
No answer.
The side panel moved again.
I saw gloved fingers through a gap.
I brought the lamp down hard on the metal beside them.
The hand disappeared.
A curse came from the other side.
Mrs. Marsh whispered, "Good girl."
Even then, I nearly laughed.
A siren sounded outside the building.
The corridor footsteps retreated.
The person in the adjacent unit stopped forcing the wall.
Then came the sound of something heavy falling.
Cho moved toward the entrance.
"Wait," Morgan said.
Blue emergency lights flickered on.
The corridor was empty.
A maintenance cart lay on its side twenty feet away.
The access door at the far end swung slowly shut.
Local police arrived three minutes later.
They found no intruders.
They did find that the building's breaker panel had been manually opened.
They also found the adjacent storage unit unlocked and empty.
Someone had rented it online forty-seven minutes before our arrival using a prepaid card.
The renter's name was Celeste Vane.
I stared at the digital form on the manager's computer.
My counterfeit self had just tried to break into my mother's storage unit.
"They're using the identity in real time," Cho said.
"Or they want us to think they are."
Morgan looked at me.
"Either way, this is escalation."
Mrs. Marsh refused medical attention and refused to go home.
"I've spent twelve years being afraid of Arthur Vane," she said.
"I'm tired."
I understood that feeling.
Fear is exhausting long before courage becomes admirable.
We moved the desk and all its contents into federal evidence custody.
I kept my mother's letter after Cho photographed it.
He objected for exactly twelve seconds.
Then he saw my face and stopped.
At 2:43 p.m., Morgan's phone rang.
She listened without speaking.
"Understood."
She ended the call.
"The board voted."
"On my shares?"
"On a resolution recognizing the nine-year-old declaratory judgment as conclusive."
"Meaning?"
"They are treating you as having no ownership interest."
"Vote count?"
"Seven to two."
"Who voted against?"
"Independent directors Lydia Chen and Samuel Ortiz."
I knew both names.
Chen had run a logistics company before joining Vane Meridian's board.
Ortiz was a retired judge Arthur liked to display whenever someone questioned governance.
"Grant?"
"Voted yes."
The disappointment surprised me.
My mother's letter had warned that the first lie would feel like protection.
Grant had just chosen another one.
"Serena?"
"She is not a voting director."
"Arthur?"
"Recused."
I almost smiled.
He had designed the outcome without leaving fingerprints.
"What now?"
Morgan held up her phone.
"We file."
By 4:00 p.m., Rachel Levin had submitted an emergency petition in Chancery Court challenging the old judgment, the forged release, the trust administration, and the board's new resolution.
By 4:22, Arthur's lawyers filed a response accusing me of forum manipulation, harassment, and attempted corporate sabotage.
By 4:40, Serena was on television saying she loved me.
That was the part that made me throw the remote.
"Our family has always loved Celeste," she told a morning anchor in a segment rebroadcast online.
She wore pale blue.
Our mother's color.
"We have tried privately for years to support her, but she has rejected every effort."
The anchor looked sympathetic.
"Do you believe her military service is real?"
Serena smiled sadly.
"Of course."
Of course.
Twenty-four hours earlier, she had laughed at the scars that service put on my body.
Now she was turning my uniform into another prop for the family.
"We're proud of anyone who serves," she continued.
"But military achievement doesn't erase complicated personal history."
I muted the screen.
"She is good," Cho said.
"She has always been good."
"At lying?"
"At making people feel guilty for doubting her."
A knock sounded at the temporary office door.
A clerk entered with a sealed envelope.
"For Commander Vane. Hand delivery."
Morgan took it first.
There was no return address.
Inside was a photocopy of a bank statement.
The account belonged to CAV Technical Review.
A transfer of $2.4 million had been made seven years earlier.
The recipient was Admiral Thomas Reed.
I read the line twice.
"No."
Morgan leaned closer.
"It may be fabricated."
"Or it may be why the anonymous sender told me not to trust him."
Cho called Reed immediately.
He did not answer.
Called again.
Voicemail.
A third call went unanswered.
Then Morgan's phone buzzed.
The hearing on my emergency petition had been set for 9:00 a.m. the next morning.
Arthur's legal team had requested my personal appearance.
So had the judge.
"Good," I said.
"I want him in front of me."
Levin entered ten minutes later carrying three binders.
"Be careful what you want."
"Why?"
She placed the first binder on the table.
"Arthur's team produced the original release agreement."
"Forged."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe."
"They also produced a video."
I looked at her.
"Of what?"
She turned her laptop toward me.
The screen showed my father's study nine years earlier.
I stood beside the desk.
Leonard Price sat across from me.
Arthur stood by the windows.
The date stamp was the night before I left.
My stomach tightened.
I remembered that meeting.
I remembered refusing to sign.
Levin pressed play.
On the video, Arthur pushed the release toward me.
"Sign it," he said.
I watched my younger self take the pen.
I watched her bend over the document.
Then I watched her write something on the signature line.
The camera angle could not show the words.
Arthur took the paper.
The video ended.
Levin looked at me.
"What did you write?"
Relief rushed through me.
"I remember."
"What?"
"I wrote two words."
Morgan leaned forward.
"Which words?"
I looked at the frozen image of my younger self.
"Absolutely not."
Cho almost smiled.
Levin did not.
"Then we need the original."
"They say they have it."
"They filed a scan."
"What does the scan show?"
She opened the document.
My signature appeared cleanly at the bottom.
Celeste A. Vane.
The words absolutely not were gone.
"Altered," I said.
"Can we prove it?"
"Ink analysis."
"If Arthur produces the paper."
"He will."
Levin shook her head.
"He may claim it was lost after scanning."
I leaned back.
For the first time, I saw the shape of tomorrow's hearing.
Arthur would not argue that he loved me.
He would not argue that he had been fair.
He would argue documents.
Records.
Orders.
A paper world he had built while I was at sea.
I had scars.
He had signatures.
In court, paper often spoke louder.
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number appeared.
THE ORIGINAL RELEASE IS NOT LOST.
A second message followed.
GRANT HAS IT.
May you like
Then a third.
AND ARTHUR JUST FOUND OUT.
