Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Archives
The basement archives room smelled of stale dust, old paper, and industrial cleaning solvent. It was windowless, lit by buzzing fluorescent strips that flickered with a low, maddening hum.
I pushed my cleaning cart through the heavy double doors, locking them behind me from the inside.
My phone was vibrating in my pocket. A missed call from the babysitter, letting me know Owen and Maisie were asleep upstairs after finishing their homework. I didn't call back. I couldn't risk the distraction.
I walked over to the secondary terminal sitting in the corner of the archives room—a decommissioned workstation that still had a hardwired bridge to Northgate’s internal network. It was the terminal Travis assumed I used during my night shifts to pad my access logs.
I pulled Claire’s USB drive from my pocket and slotted it into the USB port.
A password prompt flickered onto the screen.
Enter Admin Key.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. I closed my eyes, taking a slow, deep breath, pulling back into memory the complex, multi-layered passphrases Travis used to use when we sat at our kitchen table building the company together—codes based on milestones, dates, and names only the two of us shared.
Northgate-2012-First-Client.
I typed it in.
Access Denied.
I frowned, my heart skipping a beat. He had changed it. Of course he had. He wasn't the man I built the company with anymore. He was a corporate predator who locked away his past like a discarded asset.
I stared at the blinking cursor. What would the new Travis use? Something arrogant. Something cold.
Then I thought about the forged signature on the transfer order. The sharp, rigid angles of the K.
Kaelen.
It was the name of the high-end yacht he had purchased last summer under a shell corporation—the one he claimed was just a "business investment."
I typed it in, adding the date of our final wedding anniversary.
KAELEN-061418.
The screen flashed green.
Access Granted. Welcome, Administrator.
May you like
A massive cascade of financial data unspooled across the monitor. Not just the three-point-four-million-dollar transfer, but an entire web of hidden shell accounts, illicit real estate acquisitions, and slush funds designed to bleed Northgate dry before the divorce settlement was finalized.
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