Chương 11
Samantha moved closer.
“Daniel, Samantha Vance is here.”
“Good.”
“What did you find?”
“The credential used to alter the Rochester file came from Charles’s workstation.”
“We knew that.”
“But the system also logged the authentication token attached to the session.”
I rubbed my temple.
“English.”
“The login used a physical security key.”
“So someone had to physically possess something?”
“Yes.”
“Like the BG-4 key?”
“No, different key.”
Samantha asked, “Who was assigned the security token?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
“Daniel?”
“Lucas.”
The room seemed to stop again.
I stared at Samantha.
She stared back.
“No.”
My voice sounded thin.
Daniel continued carefully.
“There may be an explanation.”
“He used Dad’s computer?”
“We don’t know that.”
“You just said his security key was used.”
“Yes.”
“To alter the file.”
“Yes.”
“So what exactly don’t we know?”
“We don’t know who physically had the token.”
“Lucas carried it.”
“Usually.”
I swallowed.
“When was the file altered?”
Daniel gave me the date.
I knew it before my brain finished processing it.
Lucas had been in Buffalo that day.
I remembered because I had gone with him.
We had driven out for a prenatal specialist appointment after my doctor noticed something on an ultrasound that later turned out to be harmless.
Lucas had sat beside me in the exam room for three hours while we waited for a second scan.
He could not have been in Syracuse editing files from Charles’s office.
“He wasn’t there.”
“What?”
“Lucas was with me in Buffalo.”
Daniel went quiet.
“All day?”
“From before eight until almost six.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
I had never been more sure of anything.
Samantha leaned toward the phone.
“Then someone had Lucas’s security token.”
Daniel said, “That is what it looks like.”
A memory moved at the edge of my mind.
Not important at first.
Just a small domestic irritation.
Lucas standing in our kitchen one morning, patting his pockets.
Keys.
Wallet.
Phone.
Then opening drawers.
“What are you looking for?”
“The stupid token.”
The black USB-sized device he used for secure company access.
He had blamed himself for losing it.
I sat upright too fast.
The monitor shifted.
Kayla caught it.
“Careful.”
“I remember.”
Samantha looked at me.
“What?”
“Lucas lost his token.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Before Rochester?”
I searched backward through the fog of pregnancy, work, holidays.
“Yes.”
“How long was it missing?”
“A few days.”
Daniel heard me.
“Did he report it?”
“I don’t know.”
“He should have.”
“He probably thought he misplaced it.”
“Did he find it?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I saw the scene.
Lucas standing beside the washing machine with the little black device between two fingers.
My father laughing from the mudroom doorway.
Charles had stopped by without warning to bring paperwork.
Or so he said.
My mouth went dry.
“In the laundry room.”
Samantha’s eyes narrowed.
“Who had been at your house?”
I looked at her.
“My father.”
Daniel swore softly.
Then he said, “Victoria, there’s another reason that matters.”
“What?”
“Security tokens don’t clone themselves easily, but the device Lucas used was an older model.”
“So?”
“If someone had physical access long enough, they may have been able to register a second token before the system migration.”
Samantha said, “Can you prove that happened?”
“I can prove a second token was registered.”
My fingers tightened around the sheet.
“To whose account?”
“Lucas’s.”
“When?”
Daniel paused.
“Three days after he lost the original.”
A pain began deep in my back.
At first I thought it was another contraction.
Then it changed.
Pressure descended so sharply I gasped.
Kayla looked at the monitor.
Dr. Patel moved immediately.
“Victoria, do you feel like you need to push?”
“Yes.”
Everything happened at once.
The bed changed position.
People moved.
Someone told Samantha where to stand.
My phone slid onto the mattress beside my hip.
Daniel’s voice still came through the speaker.
“Victoria?”
I grabbed the phone.
“One question.”
“Okay.”
“Who registered the second token?”
“I’m pulling the authorization record now.”
Dr. Patel said my name.
I ignored her.
“Daniel.”
Keys clicked through the speaker.
Then he stopped.
The pause lasted only two seconds.
It felt enormous.
“The registration was approved by a board-level administrator.”
“Who?”
“Charles Baldwin.”
I closed my eyes.
The pain crested.
Dr. Patel said, “Victoria, now.”
I dropped the phone.
Samantha caught it before it hit the floor.
For the next several minutes, there was no company.
No forged signature.
No hidden phone.
No Lucas investigation.
No father.
There was only pain and instructions and my own body doing something I could not negotiate with.
I pushed.
I screamed once and hated the sound.
Then I pushed again.
Samantha held my hand badly.
“You’re crushing my fingers,” she said.
“Then get better fingers.”
“Fair.”
Dr. Patel told me one more.
I said no.
She said yes.
I told her I hated her.
She said she had heard worse.
Then the room changed.
A small wet cry cut through everything.
Not mechanical.
Not from a monitor.
Real.
Alive.
My daughter screamed into the room, furious at all of us.
I started crying before they placed her against my chest.
She was tiny and red and warm and impossibly solid.
Her hair was dark.
Lucas’s hair.
I touched the side of her face with one shaking finger.
“Hi.”
Her crying softened for half a second.
Then resumed with renewed outrage.
Samantha turned away and wiped both cheeks.
I looked at her.
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You are terrible at lying.”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Exactly.”
The neonatal nurse checked my daughter while keeping her close.
Someone told me her weight.
Someone else said her breathing looked good.
I heard everything and almost nothing.
For several minutes, the world became exactly the size of the child on my chest.
Then my phone vibrated again beside Samantha.
She looked at the screen.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
“It’s a message from Deputy Harrison.”
“Read it.”
Samantha hesitated.
“Read it.”
She did.
May you like
Courtney had turned over the second phone.
The messages between Charles and Lucas were real.
