Gregory Shaw’s office was empty.
His assistant said he had called before dawn claiming to be sick. His company phone had been switched off. His home security system showed no activity since shortly after midnight, and the black sedan registered in his name was gone.
Daniel stood behind Gregory’s desk.
Eleven years of company history surrounded him.
Awards.
Photographs.
Framed expansion announcements.
One photograph showed Gregory beside Daniel’s father at the opening of Bellmont Hospitality’s fourth property.
Another showed Gregory at Daniel’s wedding.
Anna stood between them, laughing.
Daniel picked up the frame.
For years, that image had represented loyalty.
Now he studied Gregory’s face differently.
Richard entered carrying a laptop.
“We found his activity from last night.”
Daniel put down the photograph.
“What did he access?”
“The company archive at 2:13 a.m.”
“Which records?”
Richard hesitated.
“Anna’s.”
Daniel turned.
“What specifically?”
“Her old personnel and legal files.”
“Why would he need those?”
“We don’t know.”
Daniel walked around the desk.
“What else?”
“An archived folder with restricted permissions.”
Richard turned the laptop toward him.
PROJECT MERIDIAN.
Daniel stared at the name.
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Where?”
“Anna.”
Richard waited.
“Three months before she died,” Daniel said. “She was working late at our kitchen table. I asked what she was doing.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing I needed to worry about.”
Daniel remembered her smile.
He had kissed the top of her head and gone upstairs to check on Sophie.
He had trusted Anna to tell him if something mattered.
Perhaps she had been trying to protect him.
Or perhaps she had not yet known whom she could trust.
“Open the folder,” Daniel said.
Richard tried.
ACCESS DENIED.
“Gregory changed the permissions.”
“Override them.”
“That will generate a system alert.”
“Good.”
Richard looked at him.
“If someone is watching the archive, they’ll know immediately.”
“I want them to know we found it.”
Richard entered the override.
A progress bar appeared.
Ten percent.
Twenty.
Thirty-five.
Then the screen went black.
Richard frowned.
“That shouldn’t happen.”
He checked the connection.
“The archive server just went offline.”
“Hardware failure?”
“No.”
Richard typed rapidly.
“Remote shutdown.”
Daniel stared at the dead screen.
Someone was still inside the system.
Someone who had reacted within seconds.
The fire alarm began screaming.
Red lights flashed along the corridor.
Employees poured from offices.
Richard looked toward the ceiling.
“Coincidence?”
Daniel was already moving.
“No.”
They entered the hallway.
No smoke.
No smell of fire.
Just alarms and confused employees heading toward emergency stairs.
Daniel stopped.
“Where’s the physical archive server?”
“Twenty-second floor.”
“Who has access?”
“IT, security, and senior executives.”
Daniel turned toward the stairs.
Richard caught his arm.
“Daniel, if there is actually a fire—”
“Then everyone else should keep evacuating.”
“You’re not going upstairs.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Someone shut down the server exactly when we opened Meridian.”
“That’s why we should leave.”
Daniel knew Richard was right.
He hated it.
They followed employees downstairs.
Outside, fire engines arrived within minutes.
The alarm proved false.
A manual pull station on the twenty-first floor had been activated.
Security footage from that corridor had gone offline forty seconds earlier.
Daniel stood across the street watching firefighters enter the building.
Richard approached.
“Whoever did this knew where we were.”
Daniel nodded.
“And what we were opening.”
His phone rang.
Claire.
He answered immediately.
“Are you safe?”
“For now.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m not telling you over the phone.”
“Claire.”
“Someone broke into my apartment last night.”
Daniel went cold.
“Were you there?”
“No.”
“What was taken?”
“Nothing obvious.”
“Then what were they looking for?”
“The letter.”
Daniel stepped away from the crowd.
“Do you still have it?”
“Yes.”
“Bring it to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because there was something else in Anna’s box.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“What?”
“A flash drive.”
“Have you opened it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Claire’s breathing shook.
“Because twenty minutes after I removed it, I received a message.”
“What message?”
“Tell Daniel to stop digging.”
Daniel looked toward Bellmont headquarters.
“Claire, listen carefully. Do not go home. Do not contact anyone from Bellmont. Send Richard your location from a different device if you can.”
“I don’t know who to trust.”
“Neither do I.”
That admission frightened him more than he expected.
Claire lowered her voice.
“There’s something in the letter I didn’t tell you.”
“What?”
“Anna wrote about the night before she died.”
Daniel leaned against the stone wall.
“What happened?”
“She thought someone had been inside her car.”
His chest tightened.
“Why?”
“She found the driver’s seat moved.”
“That could mean anything.”
“She thought so too.”
Claire paused.
“Then the brake warning light came on.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“What?”
“She took the car to a mechanic.”
He closed his eyes.
The official accident report returned to him with painful clarity.
Loss of control.
Wet roadway.
Collision.
No suspicion of mechanical sabotage.
“What did the mechanic find?”
“Nothing obvious.”
“Then why put it in the letter?”
“Because Anna wrote that Gregory knew about the warning light even though she hadn’t told him.”
Daniel opened his eyes.
Traffic moved around him.
People crossed the sidewalk carrying coffee.
The ordinary world continued as if his own had not just tilted.
“How did Gregory know?”
“She didn’t know.”
Daniel’s voice became rough.
“When did you find this letter?”
“Four months ago.”
Anger flashed through him.
“Four months?”
“I was afraid.”
“You let me believe—”
“I know.”
“No, Claire. You don’t.”
He lowered his voice when several employees glanced toward him.
“For three years I told Sophie her mother died because of an accident.”
Claire began crying.
“I’m sorry.”
Daniel pressed his fingers against his forehead.
He wanted to shout.
Instead, he asked the only useful question.
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Anna wrote a name on the envelope.”
“Gregory?”
“No.”
Daniel waited.
“Thomas Mercer.”
Daniel’s body went rigid.
His uncle.
A member of Bellmont Hospitality’s board.
The man who had helped Daniel’s father finance the company decades earlier.
The man who had repeatedly encouraged Daniel to approve Gregory’s restructuring plan.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“What did Anna write?”
“Only three words.”
Claire read them.
Ask Thomas why.
Daniel stared across the street.
Richard was speaking to a fire marshal.
Marcus Whitmore stood near the building entrance.
Board members gathered beneath umbrellas.
Somewhere among the people Daniel had trusted for years was a conspiracy he still could not see clearly.
His phone vibrated with another incoming call.
His mother.
Daniel almost ignored it.
Then he remembered Anna’s old identification records.
Family records.
Documents that someone outside the company might have been able to access.
He answered.
“Mom.”
“Daniel, where are you?”
“At headquarters.”
“You need to come see me.”
“Why?”
Her voice trembled.
“Because I heard what happened at Bellmont House.”
Daniel looked across the street.
“How?”
“Thomas called me.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
Daniel’s grip tightened.
“What did he say?”
“He said Vanessa had made a mistake and you were overreacting.”
Daniel said nothing.
His mother continued.
“He told me you might start asking questions about Anna.”
Daniel’s pulse began pounding.
“Why would he say that?”
Silence.
“Mom.”
“I can’t explain this over the phone.”
“Then explain one thing.”
“What?”
“Do you know what Project Meridian is?”
The line became completely silent.
Daniel knew.
Not the answer.
But enough.
“You do.”
His mother whispered, “Please come alone.”
The call ended.
Richard approached.
“Fire department cleared the building.”
Daniel slipped the phone into his pocket.
“We have another problem.”
“What?”
“My mother knows about Meridian.”
Richard stared at him.
“How?”
“I’m going to find out.”
“Daniel, you cannot keep walking into meetings alone.”
“She asked me to.”
“That is exactly why you shouldn’t.”
Daniel looked toward the upper floors of headquarters.
“You said Gregory accessed Anna’s file last night.”
“Yes.”
“And Meridian.”
“Yes.”
“Can you recover anything locally?”
“Possibly from backup.”
“Do it.”
Richard nodded.
“And you?”
Daniel looked at his car.
“I’m seeing my mother.”
Before he could move, Marcus hurried across the sidewalk.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“We recovered part of Gregory’s archive access before the shutdown.”
Marcus handed him a tablet.
A download log appeared.
Gregory had copied seven files.
Six were encrypted.
The seventh was an old vehicle-maintenance invoice.
Daniel opened it.
Anna Mercer.
Three days before her death.
Brake inspection requested.
Daniel read the mechanic’s note.
Customer reports intermittent pressure loss. No external leak found. Recommend full hydraulic inspection before extended driving.
Daniel’s hands went numb.
“She knew.”
Richard read over his shoulder.
“Yes.”
“She knew something was wrong with the brakes.”
Marcus scrolled.
“There’s more.”
A second document appeared.
It was an internal expense authorization created the day after Anna’s death.
Daniel frowned.
“What does this have to do with her car?”
Marcus enlarged the vendor information.
The payment had gone to a company called Meridian Fleet Services.
Richard searched the corporate registry.
His expression changed.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“Meridian Fleet Services was dissolved two years ago.”
“Who owned it?”
Richard turned the screen.
The registered director was Gregory Shaw.
Daniel stared.
His phone buzzed.
A message from the unknown number.
You’re finally looking in the right place.
Another followed immediately.
But Gregory wasn’t the one who ordered it.
Daniel felt the air leave his lungs.
A third message appeared.
If you want to know who did, ask your mother why she paid him.
Daniel looked from the message to Anna’s maintenance invoice.
For three years, he had mourned an accident.
For three years, he had thanked the people around him for helping him survive it.
For three years, he had handed more authority to the same circle of executives and relatives Anna had apparently begun to fear.
Daniel turned toward his car.
Richard stepped in front of him.
“Where are you going?”
“To get an answer.”
“From whom?”
Daniel looked at the message one final time.
“My mother.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Daniel Went to His Mother for the Truth and Discovered Anna Had Left Behind a Warning Meant Specifically for Him
A Quiet Dinner in Booth Seventeen Became the Test Daniel Mercer Had Been Waiting Two Months to Conduct
Part 4 of 35
