Chapter 7: The Woman Who Knew Too Much
The conference room fell into complete silence.
On the giant display, the recovered email remained projected across the screen.
The CEO must take the fall.
No signature.
No sender's name.
Only an encrypted address that had already disappeared from the company's servers.
Daniel Harper slowly turned toward Ethan Cole.
"Can you trace it?"
Ethan shook his head.
"Not directly."
"The sender routed it through multiple offshore servers."
"So whoever wrote it knew exactly how to cover their tracks."
Victor Chen folded his arms.
"This wasn't an impulsive crime."
"No," Maya agreed quietly.
"This was planned."
Richard remained seated at the far end of the table.
His face looked older than it had twenty-four hours earlier.
He stared at the screen without speaking.
Finally he broke the silence.
"If someone wanted me removed..."
"They didn't need to steal forty-eight million dollars."
Margaret looked toward him.
"What do you mean?"
"The board already had concerns."
"My contract was up for renewal next year."
"I would've faced a vote regardless."
Thomas Greene nodded slowly.
"That's true."
Richard continued.
"So why risk federal fraud charges?"
The question lingered.
Maya studied the timeline again.
There had to be another reason.
People rarely committed crimes without a clear objective.
"Unless..."
Everyone looked toward her.
"They weren't trying to remove you."
Richard frowned.
"What?"
"They were trying to distract everyone."
Daniel leaned forward.
"Explain."
Maya walked to the screen.
She enlarged the financial timeline.
"The first unauthorized transfer happened eleven weeks ago."
She clicked another file.
"Three weeks later, Bennett Technologies received acquisition proposals from three investment groups."
Victor nodded.
"Correct."
"Then six weeks later..."
She opened another report.
"The company postponed its annual patent review."
Sandra's expression changed.
"I forgot about that."
Maya continued.
"And yesterday..."
She highlighted another calendar entry.
"The board scheduled an emergency leadership vote."
She stepped back.
"The money isn't the only thing that disappeared."
Thomas frowned.
"What are we missing?"
"Our attention."
The room grew quiet.
Daniel immediately understood.
"If everyone focuses on the stolen money..."
"...nobody reviews the patents."
Maya nodded.
"Exactly."
Victor looked alarmed.
"How valuable are those patents?"
Daniel answered without hesitation.
"Potentially billions."
Ethan quickly opened another database.
His fingers raced across the keyboard.
"I'll compare the patent portfolio."
Several tense minutes passed.
Then...
He froze.
"Oh no."
Daniel walked over.
"What?"
Ethan slowly looked up.
"There are twelve missing patent files."
The room erupted.
"What?"
"Impossible."
"They're gone?"
Ethan nodded.
"The digital archive shows they existed last month."
"But the source files..."
"...have been deleted."
Richard stood so quickly that his chair nearly tipped over.
"Our quantum learning models."
Maya looked at him.
"What?"
"They were your grandmother's last research project."
Richard's voice grew tense.
"Those patents were never commercialized."
"They've been locked inside our archive for years."
Daniel frowned.
"How much are they worth today?"
Richard answered quietly.
"If another company develops them first..."
"...they could dominate the next generation of artificial intelligence."
Maya's heartbeat accelerated.
This wasn't ordinary corporate theft.
Someone had stolen money...
To hide something even bigger.
The theft of intellectual property.
At that moment, the conference room door opened.
A security officer stepped inside.
"Mr. Harper."
"What is it?"
"We found Karen Whitfield."
Everyone turned.
"Where?"
"At Northwestern Memorial Hospital."
Richard frowned.
"Hospital?"
The officer nodded.
"She was admitted early this morning."
"What happened?"
The officer hesitated.
"She was involved in a car accident."
Twenty minutes later...
Maya, Daniel, Richard, and Margaret hurried into the hospital.
A detective from the Chicago Police Department met them outside the intensive care unit.
"I'm Detective Laura Simmons."
She shook Daniel's hand.
"Karen Whitfield is alive."
Relief washed across the group.
"But..."
The detective continued.
"She hasn't regained consciousness."
Richard looked confused.
"The airport..."
"The abandoned car?"
Detective Simmons nodded.
"Someone wanted you to believe she fled."
"Our investigation suggests otherwise."
"What do you mean?"
"The crash wasn't accidental."
Maya felt a chill.
"You think someone tried to kill her?"
The detective's expression remained grim.
"The evidence points that way."
Richard slowly leaned against the wall.
"If Karen was framed..."
"Then whoever planned this..."
"...is eliminating witnesses."
A doctor approached.
"Family?"
Daniel answered.
"We're colleagues."
The doctor nodded.
"Karen regained consciousness for less than thirty seconds."
Everyone straightened.
"Did she say anything?"
The doctor looked toward Detective Simmons.
"Only one sentence."
"What was it?"
The doctor repeated Karen's exact words.
'Tell Maya... don't trust the CFO.'
The hallway became silent.
Richard looked stunned.
"David Collins?"
Daniel frowned deeply.
"Our Chief Financial Officer?"
Maya remembered something immediately.
The anonymous email.
The emergency meeting.
The financial reports.
David had been the first executive to call Richard after the board received the leaked numbers.
Too quickly.
Almost as though he already knew.
Back at Bennett Technologies, Ethan continued reviewing archived files.
Suddenly another alert flashed across his monitor.
He immediately called Daniel.
"Mr. Harper."
Daniel answered.
"Yes?"
"I found something."
"What?"
"The deleted patents weren't destroyed."
Daniel's expression brightened.
"Where are they?"
Ethan swallowed.
"They were copied."
"Copied where?"
A long pause followed.
Finally Ethan answered.
"To an external server registered under a shell corporation."
Daniel asked quietly,
"Whose corporation?"
Ethan stared at the registration documents.
His face turned pale.
"The company was created six years ago."
"Name?"
Ethan whispered,
"Collins Strategic Holdings."
Daniel closed his eyes.
David Collins.
The Chief Financial Officer.
The man responsible for supervising every dollar inside Bennett Technologies.
The man Karen Whitfield had warned Maya not to trust.
At that same moment, hundreds of miles away, inside a luxury penthouse overlooking Manhattan, David Collins stood beside the window holding a crystal glass of scotch.
His phone buzzed.
One short message appeared on the screen.
Karen survived.
David's calm expression vanished.
Without another word, he picked up a second phone—one that none of his colleagues knew existed.
He dialed a single number.
When the call connected, he spoke only six words.
"Move the files. Tonight. No mistakes."
Then he hung up.
He had spent six years building the perfect plan.
May you like
He wasn't about to let Maya Bennett destroy it.
End of Chapter 7
