Chapter 3 - The Morning Audit
The rain had stopped by 6:00 AM, leaving behind a thick, gray Chicago fog that rolled off Lake Michigan and swallowed the estate's perimeter fence whole.
I was already in my office on the second floor when Leo walked in without knocking, holding a leather-bound folio and a heavy manila envelope. His face was set in grim lines, his trench coat damp from the morning patrol.
"You look like you haven't slept," Leo said, tossing the envelope onto my desk.
"I haven't," I replied, not looking up from the security logs spread across my monitor. "What did you find?"
Leo pulled out a stack of printed reports. "I ran the server access logs for the service wing admin terminal. Whoever downloaded the logistics data used a root-level override code that was supposed to have been decommissioned two years ago. Only two people in this organization ever had that code: me, and Vincent Rossi—Vivien's cousin and your chief financial officer."
The name landed heavily in the room. Vincent Rossi. The man who managed our offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and sat to my left at every board meeting.
"Vincent," I said flatly. "He’s in New York."
"He was in New York," Leo corrected, tapping a fingerprint scanner log on the page. "His private jet touched down at Midway at 11:45 PM last night. Private hangar. No flight plan filed with the FAA—routed through a shell company registered in Delaware."
I stood up so fast my leather chair rolled back and hit the oak bookcase. "A midnight arrival. Unannounced. Right when the federal marshals pulled our records."
"It gets better," Leo said, opening the manila envelope and sliding out a glossy eight-by-ten surveillance photograph. "One of our perimeter cameras on the south gate caught a vehicle entering the estate at midnight. A black Lincoln Town Car. No plates. The driver dropped off a package at the side entrance of the service wing, right outside the housekeeper's office, and drove off."
I looked at the photo. The car was blurry, captured through the thick fog, but the silhouette was unmistakable.
"Who received the package?" I asked.
"Mrs. Hargrove was waiting by the door," Leo said quietly. "She signed for it with a thumbprint scanner. And twenty minutes later, the server logs show a massive data export originating from room twelve."
Room twelve.
The staff wing. Sophia’s room.
My blood ran cold.
"Sophia’s room is right next to the service entrance," I said, my voice dropping into a dangerous register. "If someone wanted to plant stolen data on a network terminal or frame a staff member, the service wing is the easiest blind spot in the entire house."
"You think Sophia is involved?" Leo asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No," I said instantly, surprising even myself. "Sophia was running a hundred-and-four-degree fever and hallucinating. She couldn't log into a computer, let alone execute a root-level server bypass."
"Then why use the service wing?"
"Because whoever did it wanted to make sure the blame fell on someone whose disappearance wouldn't raise questions," I said, grabbing my suit jacket from the back of the chair. "A temporary maid with no family, no money, and no political backing. If the feds raid this house, they find the stolen data originating from the staff wing, arrest the maid, and leave the executives untouched."
Leo’s eyes narrowed. "A classic fall guy. Or fall girl."
"Where is Vincent now?"
May you like
"In the main dining room," Leo said. "He’s eating breakfast with Miss Vivien as if he didn't just fly into Chicago illegally in the middle of a hurricane."
I didn't answer. I walked around the desk, my hand resting on the butt of my pistol, and headed for the double doors.
