Chapter 7 - The Pushback
The silence in the office was absolute, broken only by the faint static of the open phone line. Elena covered her mouth to stifle a sob, shrinking back into her chair.
I stared at the speakerphone. I didn't feel the paralyzing panic I used to feel when Dominic raised his voice. I felt cold, calculating clarity.
"Mr. Croft," I said, my tone perfectly even. "I assume you are referring to your wife. Elena is a free woman who sought legal and financial counsel of her own volition. As for your hard drives, I have no idea what you are talking about. But I do have a fascinating collection of your offshore routing numbers."
Julian chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "You’re out of your depth, little girl. You got lucky with Dominic. He was an arrogant fool who left a trail a blind dog could follow. I am not Dominic. If you do not cease this audit by midnight, I will personally ensure that your little foundation is reduced to ashes, and you will never practice accounting again."
"Are you threatening a forensic investigator on a recorded line, Julian?" Sophia interjected, stepping close to the microphone. "Because under state law, that is a felony."
"I’m merely offering a weather advisory, counselor," Julian replied smoothly. "Storms happen. Fires happen. Things burn. You have until midnight."
The line went dead.
Chloe immediately started typing on her laptop. "I’m tracing the ping. He used a burner phone, routed through a VPN, but I can pull the cell tower data. I’m calling in a patrol car to sit outside the office tonight."
"He’s trying to panic us," I said, looking at Elena. "He wants us to rush, to make a mistake. He knows we have the Apex Holdings account numbers, but he doesn't think we have the encryption key to open the actual ledger."
"Do we have the key?" Sophia asked.
"Not yet," I admitted. "The Apex account is a double-blind trust. I need a sixteen-digit alphanumeric sequence to bypass the firewall and see the actual money. Without it, we just have the door, but not the key."
"Where would Julian keep a key like that?" Chloe asked.
"He wouldn't," I said, a dark realization dawning on me. "In a double-blind trust, the key is split between the two managing partners to ensure neither can steal from the other. Julian has half."
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"And who has the other half?" Elena asked quietly.
I looked at the phone. "The man who is currently sitting in a state penitentiary for burning my hand."
