Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN IN THE WHITE COAT|
By noon, Marcos had been accused of leaking his own company’s confidential records.
The evidence was convincing enough to frighten his lawyers and clean enough to look deliberate. Files had been copied using his credentials. Two internal emails appeared to show him authorizing the transfers. A recorded phone call seemed to place him discussing a payment to an informant.
Every item was false.
Every item was dangerous.
“Someone has access to your private system,” Nadia said.
Marcos stood in the center of the apartment, reading the report.
“Someone has access to more than that.”
“Isabel?”
“Possibly.”
“Rafael?”
“Possibly.”
“Victor?”
“Possibly.”
Nadia sighed.
“You’re very good at making a list.”
“I’m less good at crossing names off it.”
She turned to Evelyn.
“Can you get the original server logs?”
“Not without drawing attention.”
“Then we need someone inside the company.”
Marcos shook his head.
“No one inside my company is trustworthy.”
“Someone is. You just haven’t found them yet.”
He looked at her.
“You’re assuming there’s a good person in every room.”
“No. I’m assuming there’s at least one person who doesn’t want to spend the rest of their life cleaning up your mess.”
Before he could respond, the apartment buzzer sounded.
Gabriel checked the security monitor.
A woman in a white coat stood in the lobby holding a medical bag.
“She says she’s here to examine Nadia.”
“I didn’t request a doctor,” Nadia said.
Marcos reached for his weapon.
“Don’t open the door.”
The woman looked up at the camera.
Then she lifted a small card toward the lens.
On it was written: Cristian sent me.
Nadia moved toward the monitor.
“Let her in.”
“No,” Marcos said.
“What if she knows something?”
“What if she’s the reason you’re bleeding?”
Nadia stared at him.
“Then she can explain herself while Gabriel stands behind her with a gun.”
Marcos gave a reluctant nod.
The woman was brought upstairs and searched. She introduced herself as Dr. Lena Morris, a forensic analyst who had worked with Cristian during the early months of his investigation.
“I didn’t know he had a sister,” she said.
“Most people didn’t,” Nadia replied.
Lena removed a small storage device from the lining of her medical bag.
“Cristian gave me this shortly before he died. He said to keep it until someone asked about Terminal Twelve.”
“What’s on it?” Marcos asked.
“Copies of transaction logs. Not the whole archive, but enough to establish that the financial transfers were routed through a private network maintained by the Carrera family.”
“Why didn’t you give it to the investigators?” Evelyn asked.
“Because the original investigators were compromised.”
Nadia stared at her.
“You knew?”
“I suspected. I was warned that my reports were being accessed by people outside the unit. Then Cristian died.”
Lena handed the device to Nadia.
“There’s one more thing. The final file contains a recorded conversation. I never played it because Cristian’s instructions were explicit.”
Nadia connected the device to a secure laptop.
The audio began with static, followed by Isabel’s voice.
“If Vega refuses to sign, we use the other route.”
A man answered.
“What about the girl?”
“She doesn’t know enough to matter.”
Nadia went cold.
Then a second voice spoke.
A voice she recognized from the study recording.
Rafael Vega.
“She knows enough to be dangerous.”
The recording ended.
Marcos stood motionless.
His uncle had known Nadia was investigating before she had even taken the job at Calloway’s.
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And now the question was no longer whether Rafael had helped betray Cristian.
It was how much of the plan he had designed himself.
