Chương 6
He almost laughed.
“The truth is your favorite word right now.”
Lauren did not respond.
That silence told him more than an answer might have.
“Did you change the reports?” he asked.
The question hung between them.
Rachel looked at him.
Daniel waited.
Finally Lauren said, “You don’t know what you’re involved in.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t know if you are asking because you want to understand or because you already decided.”
Daniel looked down.
He hated that the question affected him.
Because part of him had already decided.
Lauren had become the person responsible because she was the person closest to the damage.
It was easier than admitting he had no idea who was responsible.
“Tell me one thing,” he said.
“What?”
“Are you trying to protect me?”
The silence lasted several seconds.
Then Lauren said, “I’m trying to protect myself too.”
The honesty surprised him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you are not the only person who can lose everything.”
The call ended.
Daniel lowered the phone.
Rachel waited.
“She admitted something.”
“What?”
“She’s scared.”
“That’s not the same as guilt.”
“I know.”
Rachel looked at him.
“Do you?”
The question irritated him.
But not because it was wrong.
Because it was becoming a pattern.
Everyone around him seemed to be forcing him to separate what he knew from what he assumed.
That had never been difficult at work.
Now it felt impossible.
When they returned home, Daniel did not enter immediately.
Instead, he walked around the house.
Rachel followed.
The backyard gate was slightly open.
Daniel stopped.
“We always close that.”
Rachel looked at it.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How sure?”
He looked at her.
She gave him a tired expression.
“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right.”
He pushed the gate open.
The backyard looked normal.
The same old fence.
The same broken chair he kept promising to fix.
The same patch of grass where Emma used to run barefoot during summer.
He hated how ordinary it looked.
Inside the house, nothing appeared disturbed.
No broken locks.
No missing items.
No obvious sign that anyone had been there.
Daniel went straight to his office.
The drawer was closed.
He stood there.
Rachel stayed behind him.
“Open it,” she said.
He pulled the drawer.
The folder was gone.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Daniel searched through the papers beneath it.
Then again.
Then a third time.
Nothing.
Rachel walked closer.
“What was in there?”
Daniel swallowed.
“The copies.”
“Only the copies?”
He looked at her.
The question was becoming familiar.
“No.”
Her face changed.
“What else?”
Daniel sat down slowly.
“The email chain.”
Rachel’s expression hardened.
“You didn’t tell me that.”
“I know.”
“Daniel.”
“I know.”
She turned away.
Not because she was angry.
Because she was trying not to be.
A few minutes later, his laptop connected to the home network.
A notification appeared.
One of his accounts had a login attempt.
Unknown device.
The location was nearby.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Rachel came beside him.
“Can you trace it?”
“I don’t know.”
For once, he did not pretend.
He did not guess.
He did not create an answer because silence made him uncomfortable.
He simply stood there.
Looking at the message.
A person had entered his house without leaving a mark.
A file had disappeared without anyone admitting they took it.
And somewhere inside all of this was a piece of information someone believed was worth risking everything to hide.
Then another notification appeared.
This time, it was from an email address Daniel had not seen in almost five years.
The subject line contained only three words.
You were right.
Daniel stared at the message until the words stopped looking like words.
The sender’s name sat above the email like a ghost he had never expected to see again.
Michael Reeves.
Rachel noticed the change in his face before she saw the screen.
“Who is that?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Five years was a long time.
Long enough for a person to become a memory instead of a person.
Long enough for anger to become something quieter.
Not forgiveness.
Something less generous.
Something closer to exhaustion.
“Daniel.”
He closed the laptop halfway.
“Michael used to work with me.”
Rachel waited.
She had learned that pushing him when he was protecting something only made him build higher walls.
“What happened?”
Daniel looked toward the kitchen.
The refrigerator hummed.
A car passed outside.
Somewhere down the street, someone laughed.
Normal sounds.
The kind of sounds that made everything happening inside the house feel impossible.
“He found a problem in the system before I did.”
Rachel leaned against the counter.
“And?”
“And he reported it.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
“It should have been.”
Daniel opened the laptop again.
“He was accused of mishandling information.”
“By who?”
He looked at her.
“Lauren.”
Rachel’s expression changed slightly.
Not shock.
Recognition.
Like another piece had moved into place.
“She was involved back then too.”
“She was his supervisor.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Daniel looked back at the email.
The cursor blinked beneath the subject line.
You were right.
No greeting.
No explanation.
No attachment.
Just those three words.
“He disappeared after he left.”
“Disappeared?”
“Not literally.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“He quit. Moved away. Changed his number.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone thought he was lying.”
Rachel was quiet.
Daniel noticed she was looking at the folder drawer across the room.
The one that was now empty.
“You think this is connected.”
“I think someone wants you to think it is.”
He looked at her.
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
She crossed her arms.
“And which one do you believe?”
Daniel hated that he did not have an answer.
He opened the email.
There was nothing else.
No signature.
No hidden file.
No explanation waiting underneath.
Just a sentence from a person who had spent five years staying silent.
He typed a reply.
Then stopped.
May you like
“What?”
Rachel asked.
