Chapter 8 - The Witness
Peter Lorne lived above a shuttered theater in a town two hours from the river.He opened the door holding a revolver, though his hand shook too badly to aim it.“I’m not talking,” he said.Clara sat in the parked car across the street, leg braced and hidden beneath a blanket. Nina and Agent Cho approached the building without her. Elise remained in the driver’s seat, watching the windows.“He knows something,” Elise said.“Everyone knows something.”“That is not the same as wanting to survive knowing it.”Peter finally lowered the gun after Cho showed his badge. Nina entered first. Twenty minutes passed. Then she returned to the car.“He’ll talk if Clara comes inside.”“Why?”“He says the truth belongs to the person who paid for it.”Elise looked at Clara. “That sounds like a trap.”“It may be.”Clara used the crutches to cross the street. Every movement sent pain up her spine, but she refused to let Peter see her carried. If he had been part of the scheme, she wanted him to understand that breaking her body had not made her disappear.Peter stepped aside. His apartment was crowded with old monitors and paper boxes. A theater poster covered one wall. The title had faded, leaving only a painted doorway.“You built the first dispatch system,” Clara said.“Your father paid me to build it.”“Then he accused you of selling data.”Peter looked toward the window. “He accused me because he discovered the data was being copied. He assumed it was me.”“Was it?”“No.”“Who was copying it?”Peter’s gaze settled on her. “Your husband.”Clara had expected the answer. It still struck hard.“Julian was a sales associate. He didn’t have system access.”“He had your access.”“I never gave him my credentials.”Peter’s mouth twisted. “People give access without passwords. You left your notebook on the kitchen table. You asked him to print reports. You let him sit beside you while you worked. He learned how you moved through the system.”Elise looked away.“Why did you help him?” Clara asked.“I didn’t. I confronted him. He said he was testing security.”“And you believed him?”“I wanted to.”Peter crossed the room and opened a locked cabinet. Inside was a small recorder.“After your father died, Julian came to me. He said he wanted to protect the company from Arthur. He asked me to create a duplicate archive that only he could access.”“The Lantern.”“The Lantern was your father’s name for the original backup. Julian repurposed it.”Peter handed the recorder to Cho. “I kept this because I knew he might blame me.”The recording captured Julian’s voice.“If Clara ever finds out, she’ll destroy us.”Peter answered, “There is no us. There is your family and the company.”“You don’t understand. My father has investors. If we don’t give them what they want, he’ll ruin Vanguard.”“Then tell Clara.”“She’ll choose the company over me.”The recording ended.Clara closed her eyes. Julian had not been dragged blindly into the scheme. He had known there was a danger and had decided that concealment was easier than honesty.Agent Cho asked Peter, “What did the investors want?”Peter gave a bitter laugh. “Control of the regional shipping corridors. Rusk had a theory that whoever controlled the smaller carriers could dictate rates to the national companies. Vanguard was the key because Clara’s route forecasts were better than anything he could buy.”“Why steal the money?” Nina asked.“To fund the purchases and create debt. Once Vanguard appeared unstable, Rusk would offer rescue financing. Arthur and Beatrice would receive a controlling interest through Wren Field.”“And Julian?”Peter hesitated.“He was promised the chief executive seat.”Clara felt something inside her finally break free. Not love. Love had broken earlier, in the foyer. This was the last illusion that Julian had merely been weak.“What about the attack?” she asked.Peter’s face changed.“Arthur wanted the transfer signed before a lender’s deadline. Rusk threatened to pull funding if the family couldn’t deliver your shares. Beatrice arranged the visit.”“Did Julian know they would hurt me?”“He knew they had hired a man to watch the house. He asked me to disable the exterior alarm.”Clara turned toward Nina.The attorney’s face was grim. “We need proof of that request.”Peter lifted another device. “You have it.”The recording was short. Julian’s voice, frightened and impatient, told Peter to disable the alarm and remove the backup camera feed.Peter had not obeyed.He had kept the recording.“Why?” Clara asked.Peter looked at the painted doorway on the wall. “Because your father was wrong about me once. I did steal data. I sold one route forecast to pay my daughter’s medical bills. Your father gave me a second chance.”His eyes filled.“I spent twelve years trying to deserve it.”Clara believed him enough to be afraid.A car slowed outside.Peter saw it through the curtain and went pale.“They found me,” he said.Agent Cho moved to the window.The theater lights flickered off.Someone had cut the power.
