Chapter 2 - Three Clicks and a Lie
Damian closed the vault and asked Norah to open it a third time. She considered telling him what he could do with his experiment. Then she noticed he was looking at the security camera rather than at her hands.
"You think the camera is recording this for someone else," she said.
"I think I don't know who has access to the recordings."
"That sounds like a serious management problem."
"It's becoming one."
He switched off his phone and placed it on a nearby steel shelf. Then he removed his watch. Norah watched him with growing irritation.
"Are we testing whether expensive jewelry causes supernatural events?"
"We're ruling out a remote authorization."
"You could have said that first."
He stepped away from the panel, leaving her alone in front of it. "One finger."
Norah pressed her index finger against the black glass. Green light swept beneath it. Click. Click. Click. The vault opened again.
"Satisfied?"
"Not remotely."
She withdrew her hand. "I was afraid you'd say that."
Damian inspected the panel without reaching inside. The authorization display showed an unfamiliar designation: LEGACY BENEFICIARY N.W. For a moment he thought his father had reached out from the grave to rearrange his life. Vittorio Beluchcci had established the original vault decades earlier, when the family enterprise was a collection of cash businesses and construction contracts. He'd used the word legacy whenever he wanted an unpleasant subject buried beneath a dignified one.
"Do you know what those initials mean?" Damian asked.
Norah leaned closer. "They're mine."
"They could stand for someone else."
"They could also stand for 'not working,' which is what I should be doing by now."
He closed the door. "Your palm this time."
"I need that hand to file documents and buy groceries. Please don't let your vault decide it wants to keep it."
Damian almost smiled. Almost. She placed her palm on the reader. It opened instantly.
"All right," she said. "That's enough. Whatever this is, I didn't ask for it."
He looked at her. Norah's navy cardigan was frayed at one cuff. Ink marked the side of her middle finger. She had always seemed impossible to intimidate at work, not because she lacked fear but because she refused to flatter anyone. Tonight he could see how tightly she was gripping her folder.
"Have you ever entered this archive before?"
"No."
"Has anyone mentioned your family in connection with Marston?"
"Why would they? My mother repaired books at a public library. My father fixed heating systems. I'm not an heiress hiding under a sensible cardigan."
"What was your mother's name?"
Norah went still. "Clara Witman. She died when I was ten."
Damian knew the name. It had appeared in an old company dispute, a case his father refused to discuss without becoming furious. He remembered a woman standing in his father's office with a stack of documents and a little girl waiting in the corridor. He had been barely twenty-two. He couldn't recall the child's face, only a ribbon in her hair and the woman's voice: You can bury the records, Vittorio. You cannot bury what happened.
"Do you remember her working for this company?" he asked.
Norah stared at him. "No. Why?"
He chose his next words carefully. "I remember someone with her name. I need to verify whether it's the same person."
"Then call your attorneys. Don't interrogate me for having parents."
A low chime sounded from the archive's entrance. Damian pressed the security intercom. His chief of staff, Nico Moretti, answered.
"Gideon Price is asking whether you found the Marston files," Nico said. "He says the buyers are waiting."
"Tell him I'm still reviewing. And find out who changed the archive's access list. Quietly."
"Yes, sir."
Norah heard every word. "You don't trust your own finance chief."
"I don't trust tonight."
"Well, tonight and I have something in common."
Damian's phone lit up again on the shelf despite being switched off. It was the archive's separate security handset, which he had overlooked. A notification scrolled across its tiny display: EXCEPTION EVENT FORWARDED TO FINANCE ADMINISTRATOR.
Gideon had already been alerted.
Damian pressed the archive's privacy control. A red light appeared over the entrance. The magnetic lock clicked into place. He was thinking about protecting a witness and keeping a possible adversary outside. Norah heard something else entirely.
"Unlock the door."
He turned. "We need a minute."
"I gave you several. Unlock it."
"Norah, people may be looking for you."
"Then you can explain that to me on the other side of an open door."
He hesitated. He had spent his adult life believing that controlling a room prevented catastrophe. His father had taught him to secure exits first and ask questions second. Looking at Norah now, he realized she had no reason to distinguish his protective instincts from the habits that had made his family feared.
"I need to know you're safe," he said.
"Then stop being the person making me feel unsafe."
Her words landed harder than a threat. She walked toward the entrance, set the folder on a table, and waited. Behind her, the vault sat closed and silent, its authorization panel still glowing green.
While they waited, Norah mentally listed everyone who might be wondering where she was. Her aunt expected a call after work. Her neighbor sometimes borrowed her spare key to water the plants. Three unfinished reports sat on her desk upstairs, each one marked urgent by somebody who had forgotten that midnight was a time, not a suggestion. This ordinary inventory helped her steady her breathing. She was not a character in one of Damian's family legends. She was a woman with rent, obligations, and the right to go home.
"I would like my own phone back if this conversation is going to continue," she said.
Damian glanced at the device in her cardigan pocket. "I haven't asked for it."
"Good. We're establishing the rules as we go."
Another notification appeared on the forgotten handset. This one was addressed to an unknown administrator.
May you like
SUBJECT CONFIRMED. BEGIN RECOVERY.
Damian read the words and felt the first genuine fear he'd experienced in years. Whoever had arranged this no longer needed Norah's permission to make her part of the plan.
