Chương 9
“Maybe don't open random things right now,” Lena said.
“It might be important.”
“It might be exactly what someone wants you to open.”
Mara almost snapped back.
Almost.
Instead, she closed her eyes for a second.
She hated that Lena was making sense.
She hated even more that she needed someone to say it.
“I'm going to the office,” Mara said.
Lena immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“I need answers.”
“You need a lawyer.”
“I need to know what happened.”
“You can need two things.”
Mara stood and began gathering the documents.
The movement was sharper than she intended.
“You think I should just sit here?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I think you should stop acting like walking into a room where people are accusing you is the same thing as being brave.”
The words hurt because they were too close to something Mara had been avoiding.
She had always believed action was better than fear.
But sometimes action was just fear moving quickly.
“I don't know how to do nothing,” Mara said.
Lena softened.
“I know.”
The room became quiet.
Not comfortable.
Not uncomfortable either.
Just honest.
Mara looked at the stack of papers.
When she was younger, she used to think adulthood meant becoming someone who always knew what to do.
Nobody had explained that adulthood often meant choosing between several options that all felt wrong.
Her phone rang.
This time, it was not an unknown number.
It was Westbridge security.
Mara answered.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Voss?”
“Yes.”
“This is Eric from building security.”
Her grip tightened.
“What happened?”
“There was someone at the office asking about your access badge.”
“Who?”
“He didn't give a name.”
“Did he have authorization?”
A pause.
That pause was not long.
But it was long enough.
“Eric.”
“I don't know.”
Mara looked at Lena.
“Describe him.”
“I only saw him from the desk camera.”
“Can you send me the footage?”
Another pause.
“I can send it to your personal email.”
“Why not my work email?”
“Because your work access is disabled.”
The reminder felt deliberate even if it probably was not.
“Send it.”
A few minutes later, the video arrived.
Mara opened it with Lena standing beside her.
The footage showed the lobby entrance from a security camera mounted above the reception desk.
The image quality was poor.
The person was wearing a dark jacket and carrying a folder.
Nothing unusual.
Almost anyone could have looked like that.
Then the person turned slightly toward the camera.
Mara stopped breathing for a moment.
Not because she recognized the face.
Because she recognized the folder.
It was old.
Brown leather.
A cracked corner.
A small silver mark near the edge.
Daniel Hale had carried that folder everywhere during the Riverside review.
She had seen it on conference tables.
In cafeterias.
In his office.
On the passenger seat of his car.
It was the folder of someone who believed paper still mattered.
“That's impossible,” Mara whispered.
Lena looked at her.
“What?”
“That folder.”
“Who has it?”
Mara did not answer.
The person in the video walked toward the elevators.
The security footage froze.
The timestamp appeared in the corner.
Yesterday.
3:18 p.m.
The same afternoon Alan said he found the archive folder.
Mara leaned closer.
Something about the image felt wrong.
Not the person.
Not the folder.
The timing.
She grabbed the printed document from the table and looked at the handwritten note again.
Then she looked at the security footage.
Then back at the note.
A thought came quietly.
Almost too quietly.
“Lena.”
“What?”
“Alan said he found the folder in the archive room.”
“Yes.”
“He didn't say when it was put there.”
Lena frowned.
“No.”
Mara stared at the screen.
“Someone wanted him to find it.”
The realization did not make her feel smarter.
It made her feel late.
Because if someone had arranged for Alan to discover the folder, then Alan might not be the person who brought danger into her life.
He might be the person danger had been delivered to first.
The Hidden Archive That Forced Mara Voss To Question Everyone She Trusted And Everything She Built
Mara replayed the sentence in her head until it stopped sounding like an idea and started sounding like a warning.
Someone wanted Alan to find the folder.
The problem was that she still did not know whether that someone was protecting her or using her.
Lena pulled out the chair and sat down again.
“So what does that change?”
Mara kept looking at the frozen image.
“Everything.”
“That is a very dramatic answer for someone who hates dramatic answers.”
Mara almost smiled.
Almost.
“I mean it changes the order of things.”
She picked up the folder from the table.
“Alan told me he discovered evidence that Riverside had been manipulated. I assumed he found something someone had hidden years ago.”
“And now?”
“Now I think someone placed it where he would find it.”
Lena folded her arms.
“Why?”
“That is what I need to figure out.”
“That is not a reason to walk into Westbridge alone.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Lena raised an eyebrow.
Mara looked away.
“Not anymore.”
It was a small surrender.
Lena noticed because she knew Mara’s version of admitting fear was usually changing one word in a sentence.
They sat quietly for a moment.
Outside, a delivery truck stopped near the apartment building, and someone downstairs argued with a driver about a package left at the wrong door.
The ordinary noise felt strange.
The world had not changed.
That was the part Mara could not accept.
Her entire life had tilted, but strangers were still complaining about packages.
People were still buying coffee.
Cars were still stopping at red lights.
Nobody knew that a folder sitting on her kitchen table might destroy the career she had spent fifteen years building.
“I need to talk to Alan,” Mara said.
Lena looked at her.
“You just said someone might have used him.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“So why talk to him?”
“Because I need to know if he knows that.”
