Chapter 4
The next morning, I waited until the nurse finished checking my monitors before I used the phrase.
Evelyn had taught it to me as a child, back when I thought dispatch emergencies meant weather and broken radios. If a crew lost contact and the room started filling with voices, she’d say it softly: The mountain doesn’t get the last word.
I sent it to Tessa with one more sentence.
I need the dispatch log. Don’t call this number. Don’t ask where I am.
Her reply came three minutes later.
I know what it means. Daniel will meet me.
I read it twice, then locked my phone. My pulse kept beating too quickly beneath the hospital blanket. Tessa knew I was alive. Now she was choosing to act like it.
Across the room, Daniel stood by the window, watching snow slip from the hospital roof.
“She’ll come,” I said.
He looked back at me. “You trust her?”
“I trust that she understood the risk.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” I said. “It’s what I have.”
He nodded once and reached for his coat.
At a roadside diner off the highway, Tessa slid into the booth opposite Daniel without taking off her coat. She set a paper cup between them, then placed a thin envelope beside it.
“I copied what I could without making a formal request,” she said. “Grant’s been asking for original records tied to Mara’s shares. He’s also been pushing for access to archived dispatch files.”
Daniel didn’t touch the envelope.
“Why would a CFO need dispatch archives?”
“He says he’s reviewing operational continuity. That phrase can cover almost anything if you say it in a meeting room.” Tessa glanced toward the front windows. “He’s asked for files outside his usual access. When people slowed him down, he went around them.”
Daniel opened the envelope. Inside were several printed request forms, each marked with a date and a routing note.
“Did he get what he asked for?”
“Some of it. Not all.” She tapped one page. “This is why I wanted you to see them. He’s asking for original logs, not copies.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened. “He knows what can disappear.”
“He knows what he wants to inspect.” Tessa lowered her voice. “I can’t tell you why.”
Daniel took out his phone.
Tessa stared at it. “Is she on the call?”
“She asked me to put her through.”
He checked the encryption, then angled the screen toward himself. My face appeared a moment later, pale and framed by hospital pillows.
Tessa’s breath caught. “Mara.”
“I’m here.”
Her eyes flicked over my face, taking in the tape at my wrist, the bruising near my temple. She didn’t ask if I was all right. I was grateful.
“I need you to look at a timestamp,” I said. “I remember when I woke. The cabin clock said 2:17.”
“I have a partial dispatch export,” Tessa said. “It isn’t the original, and I haven’t been able to pull the audit trail. But there’s an override entry during the same window.”
Daniel slid the page closer to the phone.
Tessa read from it. “At 2:24, a Northstar standby unit assigned to the Cedar Ridge coverage sector was reassigned west. No incident number attached. The entry is marked as a manual override.”
“Was there a call?” I asked.
“Not in this export. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one elsewhere. I need the original log to know what triggered it.”
The cabin had been burning. I had been trapped behind doors someone chained shut. At 2:24, while smoke filled my lungs, somebody had moved a Northstar unit away from Cedar Ridge.
I felt the bedrail under my fingers, cold and hard.
“Could that have delayed someone coming for me?”
“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “I won’t tell you it did when I can’t prove it.”
Her carefulness steadied me more than reassurance would have.
“Can you get the original?”
“I can try. But somebody would see the request.”
“Then don’t request it yet.”
Tessa looked directly at the screen. “I’m already in this, Mara.”
“I know. That’s why I’m asking you not to give them your name on a form.”
For a moment, none of us spoke. A waitress passed behind Tessa with a tray of plates, laughter rising from the counter and vanishing again. The ordinary world kept moving around the three of us.
Daniel folded the copied forms and returned them to the envelope.
“We’ll keep these safe,” he said.
Tessa’s gaze sharpened. “Keep them away from the hospital.”
Before I could answer, a knock sounded at my open door. Lena, the nurse who had first told me Noah was alive, stood in the doorway with a phone in her hand.
“Someone from Northstar called the hospital’s property desk,” she said. “He asked whether belongings recovered from the Cedar Ridge cabin had been logged, and whether they were still here.”
The blood seemed to drain from my face.
“Did he give a name?” Daniel asked.
“He said he was calling on behalf of Grant’s office.” Lena’s expression had gone guarded. “The staff member didn’t confirm anything. She reported it because the caller wanted details about your recovered items.”
My locket pressed against my chest beneath the hospital gown. My phone and the clothes I’d worn from the cabin had been collected after my rescue. The hospital had logged them; I had never asked where they were stored.
“Did he ask about the baby?” I said.
“Not directly.” Lena’s eyes moved to Daniel. “But we can move Noah to the restricted neonatal unit while security reviews the call. It’s an extra precaution.”
Daniel was already on his feet. “I’ll go with him.”
He looked at me, and for once I saw no hesitation in him—only the fear he was trying not to hand me.
“Go,” I said.
He bent close enough that I could hear him over the monitor. “I’ll stay with him.”
Lena ushered Daniel into the hall. I watched until he disappeared around the corner, then turned back to the encrypted call.
Tessa had gone very still.
“I’m pulling the live audit trail,” she said. “If that override is still there, I’ll find out what it actually changed.”
“Carefully,” I said.
“I know.”
A few seconds later, the screen filled with rows of numbers and short codes. Tessa leaned closer, scrolling with one finger. She stopped.
“What?” I asked.
“I found the entry.”
Her voice had changed. Not frightened exactly. Struck.
“Read it.”
Tessa looked at the screen again, as if the words might rearrange themselves.
“The override was entered under my credentials.”
I stared at her.
May you like
“Did you enter it?”
“No.” Her answer came immediately, fierce and quiet. “Mara, I swear—I never made that entry.”
