Chương 7
Call me before you decide what this means.
The sentence bothered him because Marcus had written it before Daniel knew there was anything to decide.
Daniel picked up his phone, typed Marcus’s number, and stopped.
Three times.
The fourth time, he pressed call before he could talk himself out of it.
Marcus answered after two rings.
“Daniel.”
The way he said the name made Daniel sit down.
Not surprise.
Not anger.
Something closer to exhaustion.
“You knew,” Daniel said.
A pause.
“I knew something was coming.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Marcus said. “It’s the only honest one I have.”
Daniel looked at the box by the door.
“Honest would have been telling me.”
“I was trying to.”
“When?”
“When I could.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“That’s what people say when they want credit for something they never did.”
The silence on the other end lasted long enough that Daniel checked the phone screen to make sure the call had not dropped.
“I deserve that,” Marcus said.
The answer irritated Daniel more than an argument would have.
“You’re not going to deny it?”
“I’m not going to pretend I handled this well.”
A car passed outside his house, music leaking through closed windows before fading down the street.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Did you give them my name?”
“No.”
“Did you give them access to those files?”
“No.”
“Then why am I the one being investigated?”
Marcus breathed in slowly.
“Because your account opened the folder.”
Daniel’s grip tightened around the phone.
“I was authorized.”
“Yes.”
“You approved it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are they acting like I broke in?”
“Because someone changed the access record.”
Daniel stood.
“What?”
“I found out yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“I was trying to confirm it before I called you.”
“You were trying to confirm it while I was sitting here getting treated like a criminal?”
“I was trying not to give you a theory.”
Daniel walked to the kitchen window.
A woman across the street was watering flowers along her driveway. She waved at a passing child on a bicycle. The normalness of it felt almost insulting.
“What changed?” Daniel asked.
Marcus hesitated.
That hesitation was different.
Careful.
Not guilty.
“The file access report says your credentials were used at 11:43 p.m. on the night the records were copied.”
Daniel frowned.
“I wasn’t working at 11:43.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because I checked.”
The answer landed harder than Daniel expected.
“You checked my schedule?”
“I checked the building entry logs.”
Daniel went quiet.
Marcus continued.
“You left the office at 6:18 that evening.”
“I went home.”
“Yes.”
“So someone used my account after I left.”
“That’s what I believe.”
Daniel leaned against the counter.
“Why didn’t you tell investigators?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“And they said the access record was generated by the system and needed to be examined.”
Daniel almost missed the meaning.
“They didn’t believe you.”
“They believe the record exists.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Marcus did not answer.
Daniel closed his eyes.
For years, Marcus had been the person who knew how Northbridge worked from the inside. He knew which departments buried problems, which managers avoided difficult conversations, which employees were quietly protected because losing them would create bigger problems.
But Daniel had never seen him afraid.
Not until now.
“Send me what you found,” Daniel said.
“No.”
The refusal came instantly.
Daniel stopped moving.
“No?”
“Not electronically.”
“Why?”
“Because if your account was used once, I don’t know what else has been accessed.”
The apartment became strangely quiet.
Even the refrigerator seemed too loud.
Marcus lowered his voice.
“Do you still have the old external drive from the compliance review?”
Daniel looked toward the desk near the living room.
The drive was inside a drawer.
He had used it three weeks earlier when reviewing archived documents because the company system had been running slowly. He had copied temporary notes there before moving them back into the secure folder.
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“I have a lot going on today.”
“I know.”
The softness in Marcus’s voice almost made Daniel angry.
He did not need sympathy.
He needed facts.
“Why does the drive matter?”
“Because the files you reviewed were not the same files I approved.”
Daniel felt the room tilt slightly.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone changed something between the time I assigned them and the time you opened them.”
Daniel said nothing.
A memory surfaced without warning.
Not a dramatic one.
Just a small thing.
The records room printer making a clicking sound.
Marcus standing beside him.
A stack of pages sitting face down on the table.
Daniel had complained that the formatting was wrong.
Marcus had told him to review the digital version instead.
At the time, it had seemed like nothing.
Now it had edges.
“What changed?” Daniel asked.
Marcus took a moment.
“A transaction summary.”
“Which one?”
“I can’t discuss details over the phone.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“You called me to tell me not to talk on the phone?”
“I called you because I thought you deserved to know someone else may have been using your access.”
“And now?”
“Now I think someone wanted you to discover that.”
The sentence stayed between them.
Daniel hated how easily it fit.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have a guess.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Another pause.
“Someone who benefits if the investigation stays focused on you.”
Daniel looked at the box near the door.
The company laptop.
The machine that had once made him feel useful.
Now it felt like evidence.
“Marcus.”
“Yeah?”
“If you know something, you need to tell me.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t get to say that. You don’t get to sit on information because you’re trying to protect me.”
Marcus was quiet.
Then he said, “I’m trying to protect more than you.”
Daniel felt the anger return.
“Meaning?”
“I can’t answer that yet.”
“That’s not acceptable.”
“I know.”
The call ended two minutes later.
May you like
Not because either man was finished.
Because neither one had anything left to say without making things worse.
