Chapter 9 - Adrian Vale’s File.
Elias sounded almost relaxed through the speaker.
Adrian looked up at the small grille in the elevator ceiling.
“You have my attention.”
“I’ve had it all night.”
“No.”
Adrian glanced at Claire.
“You had my inconvenience.”
Elias laughed.
“Still performing.”
Claire looked at the emergency panel.
No floor buttons responded.
Daniel checked his phone.
No signal again.
Jonathan examined the seam of the elevator doors.
Simon leaned against the back wall, unusually quiet.
Elias continued.
“Ask Daniel why Martin wanted you investigated.”
Adrian looked at Daniel.
Daniel did not deny it.
“Martin thought you might be rebuilding the leverage archive,” he said.
Claire stared at Adrian.
Adrian’s expression remained controlled.
“Why?”
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“Because someone using your executive credentials approved Meridian contracts Martin never authorized.”
Simon spoke quickly.
“Executive credentials can be cloned.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Yes.”
Simon stopped talking.
Claire watched Adrian carefully.
“Did you approve Meridian?”
“I approved the vendor relationship four years ago.”
Simon nodded.
“There.”
Adrian continued.
“I did not approve thirty million dollars in covert intelligence work.”
Elias’s voice came through the speaker.
“That’s the problem with empires, Adrian.”
“Eventually the signature becomes more important than the man.”
Adrian looked up.
“Why did you kill Martin?”
The elevator became silent.
Then Elias spoke.
“I didn’t.”
Claire frowned.
Jonathan looked at her.
Elias continued.
“I was near the crash site because Martin called me.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
“He called you?”
“At 10:58 that night.”
“You lied about being in Boston.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Martin asked me to.”
Adrian’s voice dropped.
“Why would my brother ask you to lie about the night he died?”
Elias paused.
“Because he knew someone would check where I was.”
Daniel looked at Adrian.
“That makes no sense.”
Jonathan disagreed.
“It does if Martin was setting a trap.”
Claire turned toward him.
“For whom?”
Jonathan looked at Simon.
Simon’s expression hardened.
“This again?”
The speaker crackled.
Elias laughed softly.
“Poor Simon.”
Simon looked up.
“You think this is funny?”
“I think you finally understand what it feels like when everyone in the room knows there’s a traitor and the evidence keeps pointing at you.”
Simon stepped toward the speaker.
“You stole Martin’s audit.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened to publish the Ledger.”
“Yes.”
“You shut down the building.”
“No.”
Everyone froze.
Elias continued.
“I did not loop the cameras.”
“I did not cut the network.”
“And I definitely did not put a tracker on Rebecca.”
Claire looked at Jonathan.
Her father’s face was grim.
Elias went on.
“I stole the drive because I realized whoever was inside Meridian had already started moving.”
Adrian stared at the speaker.
“You could have come to me.”
Elias laughed.
“Like Claire did?”
That hurt because it was accurate.
Adrian ignored it.
“Why the roof?”
“Because there’s no internal camera coverage on the eastern side of the helipad.”
Simon immediately said, “That’s not true.”
Elias went silent.
Everyone looked at Simon.
Simon realized his mistake.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
Claire noticed that Elias sounded different when he spoke about Martin's crash.
The sarcasm disappeared.
So did the swagger he used whenever Adrian challenged him.
If he was lying, he was very good.
If he was telling the truth, he had carried eight months of fear behind the face of an ordinary executive.
That possibility angered her almost as much as the suspected betrayal.
A company where good people were too afraid to tell the truth could be corrupted without a single dramatic conspiracy.
It only needed enough people protecting themselves one silence at a time.
Claire wondered whether that was Martin's real discovery.
Maybe the leverage network survived not because one villain was brilliant, but because dozens of frightened people each decided tomorrow would be a safer day to speak.
“How do you know?”
Simon’s mouth tightened.
“I reviewed the security upgrade.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
Jonathan shook his head.
“The east-side blind spot was added six weeks ago.”
Simon looked at him.
“You don’t know that.”
Jonathan smiled faintly.
“I installed it.”
Claire stared at her father.
“You what?”
“For Martin.”
Adrian looked from Jonathan to the speaker.
“My dead brother is becoming extremely busy.”
Elias spoke again.
“Get to the roof.”
“Bring Simon.”
Simon stepped forward.
“No.”
Adrian looked at him.
Simon’s voice sharpened.
“This is a setup.”
“Everything tonight is a setup,” Claire said.
“That doesn’t mean we get to stand in an elevator forever.”
Simon turned toward her.
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with.”
Claire held his gaze.
“Then explain it.”
He said nothing.
The elevator suddenly dropped half a floor.
Claire grabbed Adrian’s arm.
Daniel hit the wall.
The emergency brake caught with a violent jolt.
Elias swore through the speaker.
“I didn’t do that either.”
Adrian looked toward the ceiling hatch.
“Then someone else is done waiting.”
A metallic scraping sound came from above the elevator.
May you like
Someone was standing on the roof of the car.
DON'T WAKE THE BOSS
