Chapter 4 - Six Months Of Midnight Calls
Alexander took the photograph from Elena as though touching it too quickly might change what it showed.
His father stood in the center of the image, older than Alexander remembered him, but unmistakable.
Jonathan Sterling had the same narrow eyes, the same square jaw, the same habit of resting one hand inside his coat pocket.
Alexander had watched that man’s coffin lowered into the ground eleven years earlier.
“This is fake,” he said.
Elena said nothing.
He looked at her.
“It has to be.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t believe that.”
“I believe photographs can be manipulated.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” Elena said softly. “It isn’t.”
Alexander turned the photograph over.
On the back, someone had written a date and three words.
PRAGUE. SECOND MEETING. J.S.
His face tightened.
“J.S.”
“Jonathan Sterling,” Elena said.
“My father died in 2015.”
“The date on that picture is 2018.”
He stared at her.
“I can read.”
“Then you understand why Daniel was afraid when Prague came up.”
Alexander set the photograph on a workbench.
“We need the laptop.”
Elena examined the evidence bag.
“The seal is old.”
“Can you access it?”
“Maybe. But not on the company network.”
“Why?”
“If Sofia hid this, assume someone is monitoring internal devices.”
Alexander pulled out his phone.
“I have an isolated forensic machine in my private office.”
Elena raised an eyebrow.
“Every billionaire has one?”
“Only the paranoid ones.”
“Good. Today you get rewarded.”
They took the service elevator to the fifty-first floor.
Alexander’s private office occupied the northeast corner of the building. Unlike the boardroom, it was almost severe: dark walnut, steel, white walls, no family photographs except one old black-and-white picture of Jonathan Sterling standing beside a cargo ship.
Elena noticed it immediately.
Alexander noticed her noticing.
“He started with freight,” he said.
“I know.”
“Of course you do.”
He unlocked a cabinet behind his desk and removed a compact laptop with no network card installed.
Elena sat down.
Before she opened Sofia’s computer, she looked at Alexander.
“If there’s personal material on here, I’m not asking permission to read it.”
He nodded.
“If it helps explain what happened to your sister, read everything.”
She broke the old evidence seal.
Sofia’s laptop powered on with a weak battery warning.
A password screen appeared.
Elena stared at it.
Alexander waited.
“Can you guess it?”
“No.”
“You were sisters.”
“That’s exactly why I can’t guess it. Sofia changed passwords every week because she thought birthdays were for amateurs.”
Elena studied the hint beneath the field.
THE FIRST LANGUAGE WE SHARED.
Her throat tightened.
“Spanish?” Alexander asked.
“No.”
Elena typed two words.
Pig Latin.
The computer unlocked.
Alexander blinked.
“That counts as a language?”
“When you’re nine and twelve, absolutely.”
The desktop contained almost nothing.
Three folders.
ARCHIVE.
CALLS.
IF I’M GONE.
Elena’s hand froze above the trackpad.
Alexander looked away, giving her a privacy she had not requested but suddenly needed.
She opened CALLS first.
Audio files filled the screen.
Each one was labeled with a date, time, and language.
Serbian.
Romanian.
French.
Mandarin.
Turkish.
Arabic.
Russian.
Portuguese.
Eight languages.
The same eight Elena spoke fluently.
Alexander understood before she did.
“Sofia expected you to find this.”
Elena’s eyes burned.
“She built it for me.”
The first recording played.
Daniel’s voice came through the speakers, speaking Romanian.
Elena translated as he spoke.
“Package seven is false. Do not distribute. I repeat, the technical data is false.”
A second voice answered.
Male.
Older.
Distorted.
“Your job is not to decide what is distributed.”
Daniel replied, “My job is to keep Alexander alive.”
Alexander looked at Elena.
She paused the recording.
Neither moved.
“Play it again,” he said.
She did.
My job is to keep Alexander alive.
The next file was Serbian.
Daniel again.
“You promised the boy would never be involved.”
The distorted voice responded.
“The boy became involved when he inherited the company.”
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“I was thirty-one when my father died.”
“To someone older, you were still the boy.”
They played six recordings.
Every conversation followed the same pattern.
Daniel pretended to cooperate.
The unknown man demanded files.
Daniel substituted fake information.
And again and again, one phrase appeared.
THE ARCHIVE MUST STAY CLOSED.
Elena finally opened the folder labeled ARCHIVE.
It was encrypted.
A message appeared.
KEY REQUIRED.
Beneath it, Sofia had left one clue.
ASK THE MAN WHO FIRED ME.
Alexander frowned.
“I never fired her.”
Elena looked at him.
“Who did?”
Before he could answer, his desk phone rang.
He glanced at the display.
Conference room C.
Daniel.
Alexander answered on speaker.
“What?”
Daniel’s voice came fast.
“Get Elena out of the building.”
Alexander straightened.
“Why?”
“Because Margaret is not the person whose name you should be afraid of.”
A crash sounded in the background.
Then Daniel shouted something away from the receiver.
The line went dead.
Alexander immediately called security.
No answer.
Elena stood.
“That’s not good.”
Alexander tried again.
Still nothing.
Then the building lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
And went out.
In the darkness, Elena’s phone lit up with a text from an unknown number.
YOU FOUND SOFIA’S COMPUTER.
May you like
LEAVE IT WHERE IT IS.
OR YOU’LL LEARN WHY SHE NEVER MADE IT HOME.
