Chapter 2 - The Locked Room
I called building security without letting Alex out of my arms.
Within three minutes, two guards were inside the penthouse.
Within five, every room had been searched.
No intruder.
No broken window.
No forced entry.
The private elevator log showed only my arrival.
The service elevator had not moved since midnight.
The photograph on my phone made that impossible.
Someone had either been inside my home or had access to a camera I did not know existed.
I sent Alex with the senior guard to my bedroom.
Elizabeth tried to follow.
“No,” I said.
She stopped.
“You stay with me.”
“Andrew, he’s frightened.”
“So am I.”
That silenced her.
I held up the key.
“You said Emma gave this to you.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me everything.”
Elizabeth stood in the ruined kitchen, flour clinging to her bare feet.
“Emma contacted me because of my brother.”
“Who was your brother?”
“Daniel Brown.”
The name meant nothing at first.
Then it did.
Daniel Brown had worked in internal auditing at James Meridian Holdings.
He had died eight months earlier.
Car accident.
“He worked for me.”
“He was trying to warn you.”
“About what?”
“The accounts Emma discovered.”
I stared at her.
“Daniel never contacted me.”
“He tried.”
“How?”
“Emails. Reports. Requests for meetings.”
“I never received them.”
“That’s what frightened him.”
Elizabeth explained that Daniel had discovered payments moving through dormant subsidiaries connected to James Meridian. Individually, the transfers looked ordinary. Together, they formed a pattern.
Millions of dollars.
Someone with executive-level access had been authorizing them.
Daniel had begun collecting evidence.
Then he died.
The police called it an accident.
Elizabeth never believed it.
“Emma contacted me after she found Daniel’s name in an archived audit,” Elizabeth said.
“How would Emma have access?”
“She was your wife.”
“That doesn’t give her access to internal financial records.”
“No. But your home office did.”
I remembered Emma sitting at my desk sometimes.
I had never cared.
I trusted her completely.
“She found an encrypted folder,” Elizabeth continued. “Daniel created it before he died.”
“And she contacted you?”
“Yes.”
“Why not me?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“Because she didn’t know who around you was compromised.”
The words angered me.
“My wife trusted me.”
“She did.”
“Then why hide this?”
“Because she was trying to protect you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“She’s dead.”
Elizabeth absorbed that without defending herself.
“So protection didn’t work.”
“No,” she whispered.
The anger left me as quickly as it had come.
Only grief remained.
“Tell me about the morning she died.”
Elizabeth looked toward the service hallway.
“She asked me to come here at six.”
“You entered my penthouse?”
“Through the service entrance.”
“How?”
“Emma gave me temporary access.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to show me what she had found.”
I could barely breathe.
“What happened?”
“I arrived at 6:08.”
I remembered my own morning.
My car had picked me up at 5:40.
Emma had kissed me goodbye.
Alex had been asleep.
Or I thought he had.
“When I arrived,” Elizabeth continued, “Emma was frightened. She had printed documents. She said somebody had accessed your home office remotely the previous night.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
Elizabeth swallowed.
“She took me toward the storage room. She said she had hidden the original evidence there.”
I looked at the key.
“Then?”
“We heard someone.”
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
My patience snapped.
“You were here when my wife died and you never saw who did it?”
“I saw a man from behind.”
“Describe him.”
“Tall. Dark coat. He knew the apartment.”
“How?”
“He didn’t hesitate. He moved through the service hallway like he had been there before.”
My mind raced through employees, relatives, executives, building staff.
“What happened to Emma?”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled.
“She told me to hide.”
“You hid?”
“She made me.”
“Where?”
“The storage room.”
My stomach dropped.
“She locked you inside?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I heard them arguing.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much clearly. But Emma said one thing.”
Elizabeth looked directly at me.
“She said, ‘Andrew will find out.’”
My throat tightened.
“And then?”
“A crash.”
I closed my eyes.
For four months, I had imagined Emma’s last moments.
None of my nightmares had included another person standing feet away.
“I couldn’t get out,” Elizabeth continued. “Emma had locked the door from outside. There was another key inside, but it had fallen behind shelving. By the time I found it and got out…”
She stopped.
I finished for her.
“Emma was dead.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“And Alex?”
“In the hallway.”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“He was standing near the kitchen.”
I felt sick.
“He saw?”
“I don’t know exactly what he saw.”
“But he saw you.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you stay?”
“Because I heard someone returning.”
“The man?”
“I assumed so. I took the service stairs.”
“You left my son?”
Pain crossed her face.
“Yes.”
I stepped away.
That was the part I could not forgive.
Whatever her fear, Alex had been five years old.
His mother was dying.
“You disappeared for four months.”
“I was terrified.”
“And then you came back as my housekeeper.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the police never investigated Emma’s death as anything except an accident.”
“And you decided to investigate it yourself?”
“No.”
She looked toward my bedroom, where Alex was sleeping.
“I came back because someone found me first.”
She pulled out her phone.
There were photographs.
Her apartment door open.
Her belongings disturbed.
A photograph of Daniel removed from its frame.
Then a message.
STOP ASKING ABOUT EMMA JAMES.
Another arrived two weeks later.
THE BOY DOESN’T TALK. KEEP IT THAT WAY.
My stomach turned.
“When was this?”
“Twenty-four days ago.”
Three days before I hired her.
“You knew Alex might be in danger.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t know whether I could trust you.”
That hurt more than it should have.
“I’m his father.”
“And whoever did this knew your schedule, your home, your company, and your security.”
She had a point.
I hated that.
I looked toward the service hallway.
“Open the room.”
We walked together.
The old service staircase sat behind a narrow walnut door near the pantry.
Beside it was the storage room.
I had not entered it since Emma died.
The police had.
They found nothing unusual.
I inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
Elizabeth switched on the light.
Shelves.
Boxes.
Holiday decorations.
Old furniture.
Nothing looked remarkable.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Emma hid evidence.”
“She did.”
We searched.
Ten minutes.
Twenty.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something strange.
One shelf had fresh scratches near its base.
I pulled it away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow panel.
My fingers found a recessed latch.
The panel opened.
Inside was a small metal box.
My hands trembled as I removed it.
There was no lock.
Inside were documents.
A flash drive.
And Emma’s phone.
Not the phone police had returned to me.
A second phone.
I turned it on.
The battery was dead.
Elizabeth found a charger.
We waited.
Finally, the screen illuminated.
One video file appeared.
Timestamped the morning Emma died.
6:14 a.m.
I pressed play.
Emma appeared on screen.
Her face was frightened.
“If Andrew is watching this,” she said, “then I didn’t get the chance to tell him myself.”
My chest constricted.
Her voice.
Four months without it.
I nearly dropped the phone.
Emma continued.
“The person behind this is someone Andrew trusts completely.”
Then she looked suddenly toward something outside the frame.
A sound came from the recording.
A door opening.
Emma whispered one final sentence.
“He’s here.”
The video ended.
I stared at the black screen.
Then another file appeared beneath it.
An audio recording.
6:17 a.m.
Three minutes later.
I pressed play.
At first there was only static.
Then Emma’s voice.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
A man answered.
My blood froze.
I knew that voice.
I had known it for almost twenty years.
And at that exact moment, my phone began ringing.
The same man’s name appeared on the screen.
MICHAEL GRANT.
My oldest friend.
My company’s chief financial officer.
May you like
And Alex’s godfather.
---
