Chapter 4 - The Name in the Ledger
The Tacoma storage unit smelled of dust, oil, and wet cardboard. Elena's security team swept it twice before letting anyone enter.
Oliver held the old watch while Chloe worked the lock. The scratched date fit into a keypad hidden behind a rusted shelf. When the door opened, a single metal case waited in the center of the room.
“Your father had dramatic taste,” Chloe said.
“He was an auditor,” Oliver replied. “Maybe drama was all he could afford.”
Inside the case were ledgers, photographs, and a flash drive sealed in plastic. The top ledger contained pages of payments from Vale Meridian's early years. Most names meant nothing. One repeated name appeared beside every suspicious transfer.
PARKER CONSULTING.
Oliver's pulse stumbled.
“That was not my father's company,” he said.
Elena opened another file. “No. It was a shell account created after his death.”
“Someone used his name.”
“Someone wanted us to believe he was the thief.”
Chloe whistled. “That's not subtle.”
“Subtlety is for people who expect to be caught,” Elena said.
Her phone rang. She answered, listened, and handed it to Oliver.
His manager, Daniel Frost, sounded exhausted. “Oliver, Northstar's legal team says you authorized the supplier review and then altered the figures.”
“I did not.”
“Your digital signature is on the final file.”
“Then someone forged it.”
“The board is suspending you pending investigation.”
Oliver closed his eyes. The promotion letter in his pocket had become a weapon against him.
Elena took the phone. “This is Elena Vale.”
Daniel went silent.
“Suspend him if your counsel advises it,” Elena said. “But preserve every access log. If anything disappears, your firm becomes part of the crime.”
She ended the call.
Oliver turned on her. “I don't need you intimidating my employer.”
“I was protecting evidence.”
“You keep protecting me without asking.”
“You are standing in a storage unit connected to my family and a dead man.”
“That doesn't make you my owner.”
Her eyes flashed. “I have never confused you with property.”
The words hung between them, too intimate for an argument about files.
Chloe cleared her throat. “I found something less emotionally complicated.”
She held up the flash drive. “It contains a video. Encrypted.”
“Can you open it?” Elena asked.
“Eventually. I am gifted, not magical.”
A sharp crack came from outside.
The security lights died.
Oliver heard the first man shout, then the metallic snap of a weapon being drawn. Elena pushed him behind the metal shelving and moved with startling speed, pulling a compact pistol from beneath her jacket.
“You carry a gun?” Oliver whispered.
“Today I am trying something new.”
Chloe threw a tool case through the side window. Glass burst outward. The guards returned fire toward the alley, and Elena grabbed Oliver's wrist.
They ran through a rear corridor and emerged behind the building. Rain struck Oliver's face. A dark sedan sped away, its rear plate blurred by water.
Chloe arrived seconds later, clutching the ledger.
“They took the case,” she said. “But I kept this.”
Oliver opened the ledger beneath the shelter of an awning.
The final page had been torn in half. On the remaining edge, one handwritten sentence was visible.
May you like
THE PARKER BOY MUST NEVER LEARN WHO SIGNED THE ORDER.
Elena looked at him. “Oliver, your father's death may have been ordered by someone inside my family.”
