Chapter 4 - Morrow
The envelope contained no letter, only a strip of thermal paper curled at the edges. Claire had printed a sequence of dates, terminal numbers, and one repeated phrase: Morrow was not the failure. Morrow was the cover.
Eli read it twice beneath the hard white light of the service elevator. "What does that mean?"
"It means the system may have worked exactly as someone designed it to work."
The elevator shuddered upward. On the twenty-ninth floor, the doors opened onto a corridor with no windows and no nameplates. Ridgewell called the area an archive annex. Malcolm knew it had once held the operations control room, before the company renovated the floor and removed every sign of the old layout.
Eli fitted the key into a narrow panel beside a locked records door. It turned halfway, then stopped. A red light blinked on the wall.
"We should leave," Eli whispered.
"Yes."
Neither moved.
Footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor. Malcolm slid the thermal strip inside his jacket and pushed Eli behind the cart. Lydia appeared alone, carrying another coffee. Her heels made no sound on the carpet.
"You have a habit of being where you are not assigned," she said.
Malcolm kept his hands on the cart handle. "So do you."
Lydia's gaze shifted to the key in Eli's hand. Something cold passed through her expression. "Your mother should have taught you that curiosity is expensive."
"She taught me records are supposed to be permanent," Eli said.
Lydia stepped closer. Coffee steamed between them. "People who confuse records with truth rarely last at Ridgewell."
She poured the drink into the waste bin and walked away. Malcolm waited until the elevator doors closed behind her.
"She knew the key," Eli said.
"No," Malcolm replied. "She knew the cabinet."
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When they returned to the lobby, Malcolm found his cleaning cart unlocked. The envelope was gone, but beneath the bucket sat a fresh security notice: ACCESS REVIEW — MALCOLM AVERY.
At the bottom, someone had signed the order with Lydia Crane's initials.
