Chapter 3 - Claire’s Keycard
Claire Donovan arrived twelve minutes later.
She wore jeans beneath a wool coat and looked genuinely frightened.
“What happened?”
Lisa stared at her.
That question would have sounded normal yesterday.
Now everything sounded rehearsed.
Marcus watched from near the server-room door.
Claire saw the agents.
Her face changed.
“Lisa?”
Lisa held up the acquisition agreement.
“What is this?”
Claire looked at it.
Then at Ryan’s name.
Then Evelyn’s.
Her expression collapsed.
“Where did you get that?”
Wrong answer.
Lisa felt something inside her go cold.
“You knew.”
Claire shook her head.
“Not what you think.”
“Then explain.”
Claire looked toward Marcus.
“Not here.”
Lisa laughed.
“You planned to take my company and now you want privacy?”
Claire stepped closer.
“I was trying to stop Ryan.”
Lisa said nothing.
Claire continued.
“Three months ago, Ryan approached me.”
“He said you were burning out.”
“That your judgment was becoming reckless.”
“That defense contracts were too much pressure.”
Lisa almost smiled.
“Sounds like my husband.”
Claire looked ashamed.
“He offered me equity if I supported a temporary leadership restructure.”
“And you said?”
“At first?”
Claire looked down.
“I listened.”
The words hurt more than Lisa expected.
Claire continued.
“Then I started checking.”
“Ryan was moving company money.”
“Not from operating accounts.”
“From a dormant acquisition reserve.”
“How much?”
“Almost four hundred thousand.”
The same number Marcus had found.
Lisa’s stomach turned.
Claire held up her hands.
“I copied everything.”
“I didn’t confront him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Evelyn threatened me.”
Lisa stared.
Claire explained.
Two weeks earlier, Evelyn sent photographs of Claire meeting a married defense executive.
The relationship had ended months earlier.
But Evelyn threatened to send the photographs to the executive’s wife and the company’s ethics office.
Claire panicked.
So she pretended to cooperate.
“You signed this?”
Lisa pointed to the acquisition plan.
Claire nodded.
“Yes.”
“To stay inside.”
Lisa’s voice hardened.
“You signed a plan to steal my company so you could investigate it?”
“It sounds terrible when you say it like that.”
“It is terrible.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“You’re right.”
Then Marcus opened the server-room door.
No intruder.
But one rack had been opened.
A backup drive was missing.
Lisa walked inside.
“Which drive?”
Her systems engineer checked.
Then went pale.
“Founder Archive.”
Lisa froze.
That archive contained Lisa’s private correspondence, early client files, and one sealed directory she had never opened.
The directory came from her late father.
He left it encrypted with instructions.
Open only if Michael comes home.
Lisa had forgotten it existed.
Someone else had not.
Claire whispered.
“What was on that drive?”
Lisa looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
Then her phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
YOUR BROTHER IS ALIVE BECAUSE WE KEPT THE PROMISE.
DON’T MAKE US BREAK IT.
Attached was a photograph.
Michael sitting in the back of a vehicle.
May you like
And beside him.
Colonel Margaret Vale.
