Chapter 2 - THE LOCKED OFFICE
The lock clicked behind Nathan.
He didn't turn immediately.
Grant Holloway stood beside the office door, one hand resting on the brass handle. His expression had settled back into its familiar calm, but Nathan had known him too long to mistake calm for innocence.
“Why is the door locked?” Nathan asked.
“Because I wanted to speak privately.”
“Then you should have asked.”
Grant glanced at the open ambush file. “You went back to that?”
Nathan closed the folder.
“I was looking for a contract.”
“On page eighteen?”
The question landed between them.
Nathan kept his face still. “You remember the page numbers?”
“I remember everything about that night.”
“So do I.”
For several seconds, neither man moved. Then Grant took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door.
“Claire's daughter shouldn't be allowed to wander around the office,” he said. “Children hear things. They repeat things. It can become dangerous.”
Nathan's fingers tightened around the wheelchair arm.
“Don't speak about Lily as if she's a problem.”
“I'm thinking about your safety.”
“Then start by telling me why you searched a housekeeper's locker without my permission.”
Grant sighed. “Five thousand dollars disappeared. The money was found in her possession.”
“It was found in her locker.”
“That's a distinction without a difference.”
“Not to me.”
Grant's eyes hardened for one brief moment. “You have become very protective of them.”
Nathan looked directly at him. “And you have become very interested in what matters to me.”
Grant left without answering.
Nathan waited until the door closed. Then he called Matteo Ruiz, his head of security.
“Bring me the original camera recordings from the west corridor. Not the summaries. The raw files.”
“Is this about Claire?”
“It's about who entered her locker room.”
“I'll get them.”
“And Matteo?”
“Yes, boss?”
“Don't tell Grant.”
That afternoon, Claire sat in the staff kitchen with Lily on her lap. The little girl was coloring a picture of a purple rabbit while her mother tried to explain that they might have to leave the mansion.
“Did I do something bad?” Lily asked.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Did I make the smile man mad?”
Claire stopped folding the napkin in her hands.
“What smile man?”
“The one who had the blue envelope.”
Claire lowered her voice. “When did you see him carrying it?”
“Yesterday. By the big stairs.”
“Was he alone?”
Lily shook her head. “A tall man was with him. The tall man had a shiny watch.”
Claire thought of the security staff. Several wore expensive watches. It could mean nothing.
“Did you hear them talking?”
Lily considered it.
“The smile man said, ‘The old paper is gone.’”
Claire felt a chill.
Before she could ask another question, the kitchen door opened. Grant stood there.
“Claire. Nathan wants to see you.”
Lily slid off her mother's lap and tucked the drawing into her pocket.
Grant's gaze dropped to the paper.
“What have you got there, sweetheart?”
“My rabbit.”
“May I see?”
Lily shook her head and moved behind Claire.
Grant smiled.
“Of course.”
But when he turned away, his expression had gone cold.
That evening, Nathan reviewed the camera footage with Matteo. The corridor recording showed Grant entering the staff wing at 6:42 p.m. He carried a blue envelope. Eleven minutes later, he left without it.
At 7:03, a security supervisor entered the same corridor carrying a folded cleaning cart.
The supervisor's name was Dennis Pike.
Nathan watched the clip again.
“Where is Pike now?”
“On leave,” Matteo answered. “Grant approved it this morning.”
Nathan looked at him.
“Find him.”
Matteo nodded.
Nathan returned to the missing page in the ambush file. He remembered the original report: the convoy route had been changed twenty minutes before the attack. Only three people had known the new route.
Nathan.
Grant.
And the driver who died before the first ambulance arrived.
He looked at the empty space between pages seventeen and nineteen.
May you like
For two years, he had believed Grant had saved his life.
Now he wondered whether Grant had arranged the night that nearly ended it.
