Chương 6
For a moment, she only stared.
Then she looked up.
“Did you send anyone the file?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone we found it?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
The question landed harder than she intended.
Evan looked away.
“I know what I did.”
Mara immediately regretted the tone, but she did not apologize.
Not yet.
The last twenty-four hours had changed the rules between them. Trust was no longer something they could assume. It was something they had to prove.
The archive discovery had started with a missing financial record connected to Westbridge’s internal investigations. They had expected a buried mistake. Maybe a quiet act of fraud. Maybe evidence that Thomas Reed had been hiding something.
They had not expected the file to contain references to Daniel’s disappearance.
They had not expected dates that did not match official reports.
They had not expected names that were supposed to have no connection to each other.
And now someone knew they had found it.
Mara picked up the printed pages from the table.
The paper shook slightly in her hand.
Not because she was afraid.
Because she hated being afraid.
“Where did the message come from?”
“Unknown number.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know.”
She placed the pages down.
“No. You don’t.”
Evan looked at her.
“That’s exactly what they want.”
“What?”
“For us to start questioning everything.”
Mara gave a quiet laugh without humor.
“We should question everything.”
The answer bothered him because she was right.
That had always been one of the things that made working with Mara difficult. She was not reckless. People often mistook her stubbornness for recklessness, but it was different. She noticed gaps. Missing pieces. Things that did not fit.
Sometimes she trusted those instincts too much.
Sometimes those instincts were the only reason they were still standing.
Evan picked up the original archive folder.
“There’s something else.”
Mara looked at him.
“You’re saying that like you were hoping I wouldn’t ask.”
“I was.”
“That’s not how conversations work.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
A year ago, he would have made a joke. He would have tried to lower the tension.
Now he knew better.
Too many things had happened because people tried to make uncomfortable truths easier to swallow.
“I checked the access log again.”
“And?”
“Someone opened the file before we did.”
Mara stopped moving.
“When?”
“Three days before.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s unlikely.”
She looked at him.
“That’s your correction?”
“It matters.”
“Why?”
“Because impossible means we’re looking for something that breaks reality. Unlikely means someone made a mistake.”
Mara stared at the pages again.
“Someone with access.”
“Yes.”
“Someone inside Westbridge.”
Evan did not answer.
He did not need to.
The silence did it for him.
The two of them had spent months trying to understand what happened after Daniel vanished from the company investigation. Officially, the records suggested a series of failures. Missing paperwork. Poor decisions. A breakdown of communication.
But every time they followed the trail, they found another person who should have noticed something.
Another person who claimed they did not know.
Another person who benefited from nobody asking questions.
Mara gathered the documents.
“We need to go back.”
“To Westbridge?”
“To the archive.”
Evan frowned.
“We already found what was there.”
“No. We found what someone wanted us to find.”
The sentence stayed in the room.
Because neither of them wanted it to be true.
A hidden file was dangerous.
A planted hidden file was worse.
It meant the evidence itself could be part of the trap.
The archive basement smelled like dust and old paper when they returned an hour later.
The employee at the front desk barely looked up from his computer.
“You’re back?”
Mara smiled politely.
“Forgot something.”
The employee glanced at Evan.
“People usually don’t forget things down here.”
“People usually don’t know what they lose until they need it.”
The employee looked like he wanted to respond but decided against it.
That small hesitation bothered Evan.
Outside the archive room, he stopped.
“You noticed that?”
Mara turned.
“What?”
“He recognized us.”
“He worked here yesterday.”
“No.”
Evan lowered his voice.
“He recognized us before we told him why we were here.”
Mara looked through the glass window toward the front desk.
The employee was already looking away.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“I know.”
She studied him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“No. Because you’re trying not to jump.”
Evan looked down the hallway.
The truth was, he had spent years jumping too quickly. Daniel’s disappearance had taught him the cost of believing every suspicion. The wrong accusation could destroy a person as easily as the truth could save one.
He had promised himself he would never become someone who only looked for confirmation.
But doubt had its own danger.
Sometimes doubt protected people.
Sometimes it protected the people who were hiding things.
Inside the archive room, Mara went directly to the terminal.
The access records were still open.
She entered the file number.
Nothing appeared.
She tried again.
Still nothing.
Evan stepped closer.
“That’s different.”
“It was there yesterday.”
“Maybe the system refreshed.”
Mara shook her head.
“Not like this.”
She checked the physical cabinet.
The folder space was empty.
Not missing.
Empty.
Like the file had never existed.
For several seconds neither of them spoke.
Then Evan noticed the security camera above the doorway.
“Mara.”
She followed his eyes.
The camera light was off.
Her expression changed.
“That wasn’t off yesterday.”
“No.”
A sound came from the hallway.
A door closing.
They both turned.
Nobody was there.
Mara moved quickly toward the exit.
Evan grabbed her arm.
“Wait.”
She looked at his hand.
He released it immediately.
“Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
The agreement surprised him.
“What?”
“We don’t know who is watching.”
A few minutes later, they were back outside with copies of the information they had already saved before the file disappeared.
Not enough.
But something.
Mara stood beside the car, staring at the building.
May you like
“This is what happened to Daniel.”
Evan did not respond.
