Chapter 12
Cal’s reply arrived while Grant’s security men crowded the workroom doorway.
A pin. An address. One line beneath it: OLD SERVICE DEPOT. BAY SIX. FOOTAGE WAS STORED THERE.
Tessa read it over my shoulder. Her face had gone gray beneath the grease and pain, but her eyes sharpened.
“Cal said he’d keep the backup off the network,” she said. “If Grant knew about it, this is where he’d go.”
Grant watched us from the other side of the open recorder case. “You’re not leaving with company property.”
I looked at the hard case. Then at the men filling the doorway.
“Then tell your people to move.”
His smile was small and cold. “You still think telling people what to do makes them listen.”
Daniel eased Tessa upright. She winced, and his arm tightened around her.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
“I can make them regret asking.”
We took the recorder. One of the security men stepped forward, but Grant raised a hand—not to help us, just to stop the man. He seemed content to watch us carry the evidence away. I couldn’t tell if he wanted the recorder back or wanted me seen with it.
Outside, the storm slapped sleet against the hangar windows. The transport van waited under the overhang, its lights dimmed. Lena sat beside Noah’s isolette while the nurse checked the lines. I touched the clear plastic with two fingers. Noah slept, his tiny chest lifting beneath the blanket.
“I’ll be close,” I whispered.
Then I turned away before I could mistake leaving him for safety.
The old service depot stood beyond the hangar’s south apron, a squat metal building half swallowed by blowing snow. Tessa guided Daniel through the gate by pointing with her good hand. I carried the case, its handle biting into my palm.
Bay Six had been forced open.
The lock lay in two shining pieces on the concrete. Inside, a bare shelf showed the clean rectangle where a drive or cabinet had once sat. Dust and grit were scattered across the floor, but no equipment remained.
Tessa leaned against the frame, fighting for breath.
“No,” she whispered.
I stepped inside. The air smelled of cold iron and damp cardboard. A cable had been snipped cleanly near the wall; its severed end swung whenever the wind worried the door.
“Cal said the footage was stored here,” Daniel said.
“He said it was,” Tessa replied. “He didn’t say it was still here.”
My throat tightened. Grant’s threat from the memorial, his missing records, the burned cabin—all of it seemed to narrow to that empty shelf.
“He got here first,” I said.
No one answered. Outside, the storm swallowed the tracks in the snow almost as fast as they appeared.
We hurried back to the hangar. On a wall monitor, a live company statement played beneath Grant’s photograph. He stood in the same black anniversary suit I’d watched him wear beside my empty casket.
“Northstar’s leadership has acted to preserve stability,” he said. “The cabin footage Ms. Hart claimed would clear her name has now disappeared. The company must consider who benefits from its removal.”
My name crawled beneath his face, followed by the words: TEMPORARY CONTROL AUTHORIZED.
Tessa stopped so abruptly Daniel had to catch her.
“That’s not possible,” she said.
A board-resolution notice glowed on the dispatch screen. The attached proxy carried my name and a signature made to look like mine. I had never signed it.
Grant had not just asked the board for control. He had forged my consent and made a majority believe I’d given it.
“They voted on this?” I asked.
“They were sent a signed proxy,” Tessa said, staring at the screen. “They’ll call it valid until someone proves it isn’t.”
A hard electronic chime cut through the hangar.
The dispatch display changed. A storm warning pulsed red beside the eastern corridor. The standby aircraft assignment shifted south.
Tessa lurched toward the console. Her hand hovered above the keys, then stopped.
“My access is suspended.”
The chime sounded again. A crew’s voice crackled through the speaker, thin with static.
“Dispatch, we’re seeing a route change. Confirm?”
Tessa reached for the radio.
“Don’t accept it,” she said. “Hold your current position and wait for a verified instruction.”
The channel hissed. No answer came.
I looked from the active command to the window, where snow erased the runway lights one by one. The recorder in my hand suddenly felt like a stone that could pull everyone down with it.
Then the hangar doors clanged shut behind us.
Two security men blocked the nearest exit. Another stepped between Daniel and Tessa. Grant walked toward me alone, his expression composed, as if he had arranged the storm along with the board vote.
“You took the recorder,” he said.
“You forged my signature.”
“The board needed certainty.”
“You needed my shares.”
His eyes flicked to the case. “Give me the recorder.”
“No.”
For a moment, I heard only the dispatch speaker’s hiss and the wind driving sleet against the metal walls.
Then Grant leaned close enough that I could smell his aftershave beneath the smoke still trapped in my memory.
“I know where Daniel took Noah,” he said.
My fingers locked around the case handle.
“Keep him out of this.”
“You brought him into it when you let him carry the baby.” Grant’s gaze stayed on mine. “The Northstar transport van outside Bay Three. Lena. The nurse. Noah’s little glass box.”
My fear rose so fast it nearly stole my breath. Behind him, the dispatch display continued to pulse red.
May you like
Grant held out his hand.
“Give me the recorder,” he said, “and I’ll tell you what happens next.”
