Chapter 5 - Code 417
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Before I could digest Claire’s terrifying revelation, the door to the room opened quietly. Detective Elena Ruiz stepped inside, holding an evidence bag made of heavy clear plastic.
"Mrs. Sloane, I'm glad to see you're conscious," Ruiz said respectfully. "Mr. Sloane, I need you to take a look at this. We found it taped to the underside of the service tray left in the hallway."
Inside the clear bag sat a folded piece of yellowed paper. Written on it in dark, heavy black marker were three digits:
417
I stared at the numbers. They meant nothing to me at first glance. It wasn't a date, a phone code, or a hospital room number.
Suddenly, Vanessa stepped into the doorway behind Detective Ruiz. Her eyes landed on the plastic bag, and she gasped softly, pulling her hand to her mouth.
"Vanessa?" I turned to her. "Do you recognize this?"
Vanessa looked like she was about to faint. "Mason... seventeen years ago, when we first started Sloane Infrastructure Group... do you remember our first real office space?"
Memory slammed into me like a freight train.
Before we had a glass tower in downtown Atlanta, before we had hundreds of engineers and multi-million-dollar government contracts, we were four kids working out of a dilapidated, third-floor commercial space on Decatur Street. The heating was broken, the plumbing leaked, and the landlord demanded cash every month.
"Suite 417," I whispered, the realization chilling me to the bone. "Our original office number."
"Yes," Vanessa said, her voice shaking violently. "Suite 417. That's where we filed our very first municipal contract."
Detective Ruiz looked sharply between the two of us. "Who else knew about that office? Who worked with you back then?"
I looked at Vanessa, and then at the empty hallway behind her.
"There were four of us," I said slowly. "Me, Vanessa, Claire... and my former business partner, Daniel Price."
"Daniel Price?" Detective Ruiz noted down the name. "Where is he now?"
"I haven't seen or spoken to Daniel in sixteen years," I said. "We had a bitter falling out right after we secured our breakthrough project—the Franklin Corridor development. He walked away from the company, took his share of the remaining capital, and completely disappeared."
"Or so you thought," a quiet voice spoke up from the corridor.
May you like
My father, Isaiah, walked into the room. He looked at the paper displaying 417, his face heavy with an unbearable sorrow.
"It wasn't just an office number, Mason," Isaiah said quietly. "It's a storage code."
