Chapter 4 - Eighty-One SecondsAvery Torres hated executive offices.
“You all put couches in places where nobody has ever relaxed.”
Adrian almost smiled.
Almost.
Avery was the marine systems engineer who had overseen the yacht’s security retrofit. Thirty-three, blunt, perpetually underdressed and impossible to intimidate.
She sat at Adrian’s kitchen table with two laptops and enough cables to make the room look like a repair shop.
Junie was asleep upstairs.
Adrian had moved them to his sister Danielle’s home.
Corinne remained at the waterfront house under advice from her attorney.
“Tell me something good,” Adrian said.
Avery glanced up.
“You want good or true?”
“True.”
“Then stop asking for good.”
She rotated the screen.
“The footage didn’t vanish because the camera failed.”
Adrian stared at rows of system events he did not understand.
“How sure?”
“Ninety-nine percent.”
“What’s the other one percent?”
“Aliens.”
“Avery.”
“I’m serious. Human deletion.”
His stomach tightened.
“From the yacht?”
“Not necessarily.”
She tapped the screen.
“Your system allows remote administrative access.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You’re the CEO of a company that sells maritime technology.”
“I hire people smarter than me.”
“Finally, a realistic CEO.”
Under different circumstances he might have laughed.
“Who has access?”
“Originally? Me. Your yacht manager. Your corporate IT administrator.”
“Corporate?”
Avery nodded.
“The retrofit was ordered through Brooks Marine because Marcus wanted the yacht to double as a demonstration platform.”
There was that name again.
Adrian pulled out a chair.
“Can you tell who logged in?”
“Not directly. Whoever did it used a valid executive admin credential.”
“Marcus?”
“I said executive admin. Don’t make me say something I can’t prove.”
Adrian rubbed both hands over his face.
Avery studied him.
“You think your wife pushed the kid.”
It wasn’t really a question.
“My daughter says she did.”
“And you?”
“I think my daughter nearly died while my wife stood there.”
Avery’s expression softened.
“My nephew is four.”
Adrian looked at her.
“He believes dinosaurs become birds when they retire,” she said. “Four-year-olds say weird stuff. They also remember when somebody scares the hell out of them.”
The room went quiet.
Avery reopened a file.
“Here’s the part you’re not going to like.”
“I haven’t liked much this week.”
“The deletion command was issued thirty-six minutes before the incident.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
“What?”
“It wasn’t somebody panicking afterward.”
“You’re sure?”
“Server timestamps don’t care about feelings.”
Thirty-six minutes before.
Before Adrian kissed Corinne.
Before Junie screamed.
Before the shove.
Someone had prepared the absence of evidence.
“That means somebody knew something was going to happen.”
Avery did not answer.
She didn’t need to.
Adrian’s phone lit up.
CORINNE.
He let it ring.
Again.
Again.
Avery pointed at it.
“You going to answer?”
“No.”
“Probably smart.”
It rang a fourth time.
Then a text appeared.
Please don’t let strangers destroy our family.
Adrian stared at the words.
Strangers.
Detective Ortiz was a stranger.
Paige Morrison was a stranger.
Avery was technically a stranger.
Junie was not.
Adrian typed nothing.
Another message arrived.
Marcus says the board is already asking questions. We need to control this before it becomes public.
Adrian looked up.
“Marcus is talking to her.”
Avery shrugged.
“Sounds like it.”
“She’s worried about the board.”
“People worry about strange things when their stepdaughter almost dies.”
Adrian reread the text.
Something clicked.
“Thirty-six minutes before the incident, where was Marcus?”
“No clue.”
“I do.”
He opened his calendar.
Marcus had not joined the yacht trip.
He had claimed he needed to remain in Miami for a meeting with Northstar Capital.
Northstar.
The private equity group that had been trying to buy Brooks Marine for almost a year.
Adrian had rejected every approach.
Naomi had hated companies like Northstar.
They don’t buy businesses, she used to say. They buy the right to decide who gets hurt.
After Naomi died, her shares passed into a trust for Junie.
Adrian had never paid close attention to the details.
He didn’t need the money.
The trust was for his daughter.
Or so he thought.
His phone rang again.
This time it was Marcus.
Adrian answered.
“Hey.”
Marcus exhaled.
“Finally. Listen, I know this is hell, but we need to talk.”
“About Junie?”
“About everything.”
“That sounds broad.”
“The board’s nervous. Northstar heard about the incident.”
“How?”
Another pause.
“News travels.”
“It happened yesterday.”
“Adrian—”
“Marcus, why are you talking to Corinne?”
Silence.
“She called me.”
“Why?”
“Because you aren’t answering her.”
“Why would she call the chairman of my company about our marriage?”
Marcus sighed.
“You’re not thinking straight.”
“No. Probably not.”
“Come see me tomorrow. Just us.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve known you twenty years.”
Adrian looked at Avery’s screen.
Thirty-six minutes before Junie fell.
Someone with corporate executive credentials had erased the exact section where she would fall.
Marcus said, “Let me help you.”
Adrian’s eyes stayed on the timestamp.
“Sure.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Good.”
Adrian ended the call.
Avery raised an eyebrow.
“You trust him?”
Adrian stood.
“I used to.”
May you like
He looked again at the missing eighty-one seconds.
“But tomorrow I’m going to find out whether that was my first mistake.”
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