Chapter 8 - Fire Doesn’t Destroy EverythingThe fire looked worse on television than it was.
That sentence sounds ridiculous until you have watched your own company burn on a news helicopter feed.
Flames never consumed the building.
Sprinklers contained most of it to the server and adjacent storage rooms.
But smoke filled two floors.
Employees evacuated safely.
Tessa was fine.
Charles suffered mild smoke inhalation.
Margaret?
Nobody could find her.
For ninety-seven minutes, I believed she might be dead.
Then a detective called.
“She’s alive.”
I sat down on the curb across from the building.
“Where?”
“Hospital.”
“Was she hurt?”
“Minor burns on one hand.”
“What happened?”
“We’re still determining that.”
“Did she start the fire?”
“We have no evidence of that.”
“What about ordering the backups erased?”
Silence.
“Who told you that?”
“My assistant.”
“We’ll speak with her.”
I wanted answers immediately.
Instead, I got waiting.
By afternoon, fire investigators determined the blaze began in an electrical cabinet beside the server room.
Accident remained possible.
So did sabotage.
The backup servers survived.
That detail changed everything.
Whoever had wanted data destroyed—if anyone had—failed.
At five, Margaret’s attorney called Naomi.
Margaret wanted to see me.
Naomi recommended against it.
I went anyway.
This time, however, I didn’t go for emotional closure.
I went with an investigator’s permission, Naomi beside me, and every expectation that Margaret might lie.
Margaret sat in a private hospital room with her right hand bandaged.
She looked irritated by the gown.
That was reassuringly normal.
“You think I started it,” she said.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Good.”
“You say that a lot.”
“Because certainty is dangerous when you’re being manipulated.”
Naomi remained near the door.
I sat.
“Why did you order IT to erase the backup server?”
“I didn’t.”
“Tessa heard you.”
“She heard me tell them to air-gap the backup server.”
I frowned.
“Disconnect it.”
“Yes. Physically isolate it from the network.”
Naomi stepped closer.
“Why?”
“Because I received an alert that my credentials had been used remotely.”
My pulse changed.
“At 10:52 last night?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I told Charles at six this morning. We were trying to preserve evidence before whoever had access could delete it.”
“So you went to the server room.”
“Yes.”
“And then the fire.”
“Convenient, isn’t it?”
“For whom?”
Margaret looked at me.
“Camille.”
I stared.
“Camille was in custody.”
“She was released pending further questioning at four this morning.”
Naomi checked her phone.
Margaret continued.
“Camille worked communications, but before that she worked in digital crisis management. She knows systems. More importantly, she knows people who know systems.”
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“No.”
“Why would she destroy evidence after cooperating?”
“Because cooperation and truth are not synonyms.”
I thought of Daniel’s warning.
Do not assume Camille is telling the truth because she turned on me.
Margaret shifted painfully.
“Last year I caught Camille sending confidential board discussion to a journalist.”
“Daniel told us.”
“I recommended termination.”
“He blocked it.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you bring it to me?”
Margaret looked ashamed.
“Your mother had just received her diagnosis.”
That hit me.
“I decided it could wait.”
“Everyone decided everything could wait because my mother was sick.”
“Yes.”
“And Daniel used that.”
“Yes.”
“So did Camille.”
“I believe so.”
I stood.
“Belief isn’t enough.”
“No.”
“Then give me something useful.”
Margaret nodded.
“Check the guest list from the Langford ceremony.”
“Why?”
“When Camille attacked you, she wasn’t behaving like someone desperate to protect a secret.”
“What was she behaving like?”
“Someone creating a distraction.”
Naomi and I looked at each other.
Margaret continued.
“Eight hundred influential people downstairs. Press everywhere. Daniel knew a financial transfer was supposed to happen. You were isolated upstairs.”
“You think the attack was planned?”
“I think the timing was.”
I remembered Camille arriving.
Her anger seemed genuine.
But perhaps genuine anger could still be useful.
“Who was she distracting?”
“You.”
“From what?”
Margaret looked at Naomi.
“Ask the hotel for surveillance of the executive entrance between seven and eight.”
We did.
The Langford Foundation cooperated immediately.
At 8:20 that evening, Naomi, Leo, and I watched security footage.
Hundreds of guests entered through the main ballroom corridor.
Staff used service elevators.
At 7:31, while Camille was in my dressing room, a man entered through the executive garage.
Baseball cap.
Dark coat.
He met Daniel near a private elevator.
Daniel handed him something.
The man left six minutes later.
Leo froze the frame.
“I know him.”
“Who?”
“Marcus Vale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Leo searched.
Marcus Vale was an independent cybersecurity consultant.
He had worked for Blake & Rowe once.
Four years earlier.
On Daniel’s recommendation.
Naomi’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, then turned pale.
“What?”
“Investigators just searched Camille’s apartment.”
“And?”
“They found a laptop.”
My heart pounded.
“Containing?”
“Copies of internal Blake & Rowe files. Margaret’s credentials. Your signature files.”
There it was.
Evidence.
But Naomi wasn’t finished.
“They also found messages with Marcus Vale.”
“What kind of messages?”
She looked at me.
“The kind arranging the press leak.”
My first feeling was relief.
Margaret might be innocent.
My second was confusion.
“If Camille leaked the documents, why?”
“To force me out?”
Leo shook his head.
“Maybe bigger than that.”
He pulled up Orion ownership.
We had assumed Daniel controlled most of it.
But shell structures are designed to hide reality.
With information seized from Camille, investigators obtained warrants for financial records.
The true beneficial ownership surfaced.
Daniel: thirty percent.
Victor Rowe: thirty percent.
And a third entity: forty percent.
Registered through a trust.
Beneficiary?
Camille Hart.
I stared.
“No.”
Leo nodded.
“She wasn’t Daniel’s assistant in this.”
Naomi finished the thought.
“She was his partner.”
“No. More than that.”
I looked at the numbers.
Forty percent.
Camille owned the largest share.
She had attacked me.
Fed information to investigators.
Blamed Margaret.
Helped distribute forged documents.
And stood to gain if Blake & Rowe collapsed.
Daniel believed he was manipulating Camille.
Victor probably believed the same.
They were both wrong.
My phone rang.
Rebecca.
I answered.
“Serena.”
Her voice was shaking.
“What happened?”
“Someone broke into my house.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I wasn’t home.”
“What did they take?”
She hesitated.
“Only one thing.”
The old metal cashbox.
Daniel’s emails with Victor.
The originals.
Camille was cleaning evidence.
And she knew exactly who had it.
“Rebecca, stay somewhere secure.”
“I’m with police.”
I stood.
Naomi saw my expression.
“What?”
“She took the emails.”
“How could Camille know Rebecca had them?”
I started thinking.
Only a few people knew.
Me.
Naomi.
Leo.
Rebecca.
And Daniel.
Then I understood.
“Daniel told her.”
Naomi shook her head.
“He’s cooperating.”
“He told her before.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe he knew his mother kept them.”
The answer arrived twenty minutes later.
Not from Daniel.
From Camille.
She sent me an email.
One sentence.
You keep treating me like the mistress in your marriage when you should have realized you were the obstacle in my company.
Attached was a legal document.
A draft merger agreement.
Orion Strategic Holdings acquiring Blake & Rowe after a distressed share collapse.
CEO of the combined company:
Camille Hart.
She had never wanted Daniel.
Not really.
May you like
She wanted my chair.
And according to the document, she intended to take it in forty-eight hours.
