Chương 10
“Did you direct someone to do it?”
“I directed legal preservation.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Because the question is built on an accusation.”
“Did you tell Celeste I had made my choice?”
Peter breathed out through his nose.
A faint metallic sound followed.
Two pieces touching.
Damian looked at Celeste.
Her eyes widened.
Peter said, “I told her you had chosen continuity. You always choose continuity.”
The line went quiet.
Damian stared at the phone after the call ended.
“What was that sound?” Ruth asked.
Celeste sat straighter despite Bell’s warning. “The same sound. In the corridor.”
“A cuff link?” Adele asked.
Damian pictured Peter at dinner. Black tuxedo. White shirt. Silver cuff links shaped like small ship propellers, a gift from Damian on the company’s twenty-fifth anniversary.
Ruth held up one hand. “A sound through a phone speaker is not an identification.”
“It was him,” Celeste said.
“Maybe,” Ruth replied. “Do not improve your memory because you now have a suspect.”
Celeste’s face flushed. “I know what I heard.”
“I believe you heard a metallic sound. I believe you heard one tonight. I do not yet believe they came from the same object.”
Damian stood. “Police took Peter’s clothing.”
“They did.”
“The cuff links?”
“We ask Ortiz.”
The cuff links were not with Peter’s property.
He told police he had removed them before dinner because one fastening was loose. He believed he left them in his guest suite.
The suite was searched again.
One cuff link lay on the dresser.
The other was missing.
By late afternoon, news vans gathered outside St. Catherine. Someone had leaked that Celeste Royce had been assaulted at the family estate. Online speculation moved faster than fact. One post claimed she had been attacked during an argument over inheritance. Another claimed Damian had struck her. A financial channel reported that police were investigating “an incident involving senior Royce Maritime leadership.”
The company’s stock fell eight percent before markets closed.
Adele received calls from directors, lenders, and the head of investor relations. Ruth received a call from a federal prosecutor she had once supervised. Marcus sent a message saying reporters had surrounded headquarters.
Damian sat beside Celeste while she scrolled through none of it. Bell had taken her phone.
“I’m twenty-five,” Celeste complained. “You can’t confiscate my property.”
“I’m sixty-eight,” Bell said. “Watch me.”
“I need to contact Grace.”
“No screens.”
“I can dictate.”
“No stress.”
“My source may be in danger.”
Bell looked at Damian. “Your family has a pathological relationship with instructions.”
“That comes from her mother,” he said.
Celeste gave him a tired look. “That was almost a joke.”
“It was an observation.”
Bell handed him a plastic cup of ice. “Hold this against the back of her head.”
He did.
For several minutes, no one discussed investigations. Bell complained that the hospital coffee tasted like wet cardboard. Celeste said wet cardboard might have more caffeine. Damian adjusted the ice pack when water began to run down the side of her neck.
The ordinariness of it made him unexpectedly angry.
Three dead men, a stolen drive, a collapsing share price, Peter’s missing cuff link—and he was holding melting ice against his daughter’s scalp while an infomercial played silently on the wall.
Celeste watched his face.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“You always look offended when life becomes inconvenient.”
“This is more than inconvenient.”
“I wasn’t talking about the attack. I meant the ice leaking.”
He looked at the damp collar of her hospital gown.
She smiled faintly.
He moved the pack.
That evening, Naomi called with a discovery.
The service laptop in the security operations room had connected to an encrypted Royce Maritime account registered to the executive continuity program. The program allowed selected officers to access emergency documents during kidnappings, cyberattacks, port closures, and political disruptions.
Only four people had active accounts: Damian, Peter, Marcus, and Grant.
The connection at ten eleven had used Peter’s account.
“Then arrest him,” Damian said.
Naomi shook her head on the screen. “Credentials can be stolen. His account used a hardware security key.”
“Where is the key?”
“Peter says it was in his home safe.”
“Was it?”
“His attorney declined to answer.”
Ruth said, “Law enforcement can seek a warrant.”
“How long?”
“Longer if you keep interfering.”
Naomi shared another log. “The external device connected for three minutes. It opened one file.”
“What file?” Celeste asked.
“A text document named HSTAR_notes.”
“My notebook.”
“Someone photographed or scanned your handwritten pages, converted them to text, and opened the file on the service laptop.”
“Why?”
“They were searching for the decryption phrase.”
“Did they find it?” Damian asked.
“No phrase appears in the text.”
Celeste’s shoulders lowered slightly.
Naomi continued. “Then the same account accessed an internal messaging archive. It searched for Grace Villanueva.”
The relief vanished.
“What did it find?” Ruth asked.
“Personnel address, emergency contacts, supervisor records, travel history.”
Celeste pulled the ice pack away. “We need to warn her.”
Ruth agreed.
Grace did not answer secure messages, personal calls, or calls placed through company counsel. Her supervisor said she had not reported to work that morning. Her husband believed she was at the office. The office believed she was home.
At one fifteen in the morning in Manila, a local attorney retained by Ruth reached the family apartment. Grace was not there.
Her husband, Tomas, was frightened and furious. He said Grace had left after receiving a message from a senior Royce executive asking to meet privately at a hotel near the airport. She told him she would return within two hours.
She had been gone for seven.
“Which executive?” Damian asked through the video call.
Tomas held a sleeping child against one shoulder. “The message used Mr. Marcus Hale’s name.”
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Marcus was brought into a conference room at Royce headquarters, where two federal agents and Detective Ortiz waited.
He surrendered his phones and laptop voluntarily. The message to Grace had come from an address designed to resemble his company account. It replaced one lowercase letter with a nearly identical character. The sender knew his signature style, travel schedule, and role.
