Chapter 9: The Second Door
The alert stayed open on my phone while Daniel colored at the kitchen table, his paper family crowded beneath a blue sky. I didn’t ask what he was drawing. I couldn’t make myself turn the message facedown, either.
I called Jo.
She answered on the second ring. “You got the alert?”
“Yes. Can you come over?”
“I’m already on my way.”
By the time Jo arrived, she had her laptop under one arm and her coat still buttoned. She glanced at my screen, then at Daniel. He kept coloring, but his shoulders had gone tight.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
“It’s serious,” I said. “Jo and I are going to make some calls.”
He nodded, eyes fixed on the page. I touched the back of his chair as I passed, then joined Jo by the counter.
She opened the screenshots Tessa had sent the night before. Her finger stopped on the one where Michael told Tessa what to say if anyone asked about the paperwork.
“These are useful,” Jo said. “But screenshots alone don’t tell us whether anything’s been left out.”
“They came from her.”
“I know. I’m not saying they’re fake. I’m saying we need to know what the original thread shows.”
Jo looked at me, waiting. I opened Tessa’s contact and called.
She answered on video. Her office appeared behind her in a strip of gray carpet and glass walls. She looked tired, her hair pulled back too tightly, her eyes flicking toward something beyond the screen.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should’ve sent more last night.”
“Jo needs to see the original message thread,” I said. “Not another screenshot. Can you show us the dates and the messages around them?”
Tessa hesitated. Then she turned her phone toward herself and opened the conversation. She scrolled slowly, showing Michael’s name, the dates, the messages before and after the ones she had sent me. Jo checked each timestamp against the screenshots.
“Keep going,” Jo said.
Tessa did. Her thumb trembled once, then steadied.
Jo opened the security notices on her laptop. “The access attempts fall on the same dates,” she said. “And the messages about the paperwork came just before them.”
Tessa lowered her phone. “That’s what I told you.”
“I believe you,” Jo said. “I’m checking the sequence. It matters.”
Tessa’s mouth tightened, but she didn’t argue. Her guilt was there in the small, exhausted set of her face. So was fear.
I looked at the call icon on my screen. “I’m contacting the custodian now. I want them to confirm the destination and put my dispute directly on the second request.”
The representative answered after a short hold. I gave my name, confirmed my identity, and told her I had not authorized the second request. I asked her to mark it disputed and require direct confirmation from me before any money moved.
“I can add that instruction to the review,” she said. “I also need to tell you that the request lists a business account as the destination.”
“Whose business?”
“The account is associated with Michael’s development company.”
For one second the kitchen seemed to tilt—not because the answer surprised me, but because it made everything I’d been trying not to picture solid.
I gripped the edge of the counter.
“Please record that I’m disputing the destination and the authorization itself,” I said. “No transfer is approved. Contact me directly if anything changes.”
“I’ll note that.”
When I ended the call, Jo shut the laptop with a soft click.
“They tried again,” she said.
“And aimed at the same place.”
Daniel’s crayon scraped hard across the paper. I turned. He had drawn a thick line beneath the house, pressing so firmly the red had nearly torn through.
I didn’t ask him to stop. I didn’t tell him it would all be fine. I rested a hand on his shoulder, then went back to the call.
Tessa had moved away from the glass wall. She was standing beside a closed office door now.
“Does Michael know you kept the originals?” I asked.
“No. He thinks I only have the messages.”
“What originals?”
“The working file. The transfer worksheet, the drafts, the notes we used while putting the request together.” Her voice dropped. “I didn’t send it because I wasn’t sure what you’d do with it.”
“You helped prepare a request with my forged signature,” I said. “I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen.”
“I know.”
“But if it shows what happened, preserve it. Don’t edit anything. Don’t hand it to Michael.”
A sound came through her end of the call: a heavy knock, then another.
Tessa went still.
Jo leaned toward the screen. “Who’s there?”
Tessa didn’t answer. She glanced toward the closed door, her face drained of color.
A man’s voice came through, muffled but unmistakable.
“Tessa. Open the door.”
I felt my fingers curl around the phone. Jo’s hand closed over my wrist—not to stop me, just to steady the phone between us.
Tessa took a shallow breath. “He wasn’t supposed to be here.”
“Can you lock the door?” I asked.
“It is locked.”
The handle shifted. Tessa flinched. Behind her, something clattered—paper or a drawer, I couldn’t tell.
Michael’s voice came again, sharper now. “I know you have the file. Give it to me.”
May you like
Tessa’s eyes found the camera. The fear in them was tangled with something harder, something she hadn’t managed to name yet.
Then she leaned close to her phone and whispered, “Michael is outside my office, demanding the file.”
