On Friday afternoon, Investigator Price called.
Leo was walking home with Maya when his phone buzzed.
“Leo, it’s Samuel Price.
Are you somewhere you can talk?”
“Yes.
Is something wrong?”
“I’m afraid so.”
Price’s voice was low and controlled, the voice of a man delivering the kind of news he disliked.
“Early this morning, the cloud account that held the duplicate files from your father’s chip was accessed.
Several folders were deleted.”
Leo stopped walking.
“Deleted?”
“Permanently.
The account was supposed to be encrypted.
Whoever did this used valid credentials and a secondary authorization key.”
“Who had the key?”
“Four people.
You, your mother, me, and Dr. Carter.”
Leo felt the pavement slip.
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know.”
“And my mother wouldn’t.”
“I know that too.
I’d stake my badge on it.”
“Then—”
“The access log shows the login came from an internal district network.
Specifically, from Dr. Carter’s office computer at 2:14 this morning.”
Leo stared at the traffic moving along the street.
Maya was watching his face.
“That can’t be right,” he said.
“Dr. Carter helped us.”
“I’d like to believe that,” Price said.
“But I’ve been doing this long enough to know the person you trust most is sometimes the person you should check first.”
“What does Dr. Carter say?”
“She says she was asleep at home.
She sounded genuinely horrified.”
“Then someone used her computer.”
“Possibly.”
Price hesitated.
“There’s one more thing.
Her assistant, Neil Foster, didn’t come to work today.
His phone is off.
His apartment is empty.”
Leo remembered the young man standing beside Dr. Carter on the day everything began, holding a tablet, quietly connecting the storage module.
He remembered how smoothly Foster had entered the access code.
How easily he had been given the information.
“I think,” Leo said slowly, “someone inside the district has been feeding Sloane everything.”
“That’s my theory, too.”
“What about the original chip?”
“Safe in the evidence vault.”
Leo closed his eyes.
“It doesn’t matter.
Sloane just proved he can reach into the investigation whenever he wants.”
Price was silent.
Then he said, “Leo, I need you to listen carefully.
Until we understand how deep this goes, trust nobody you haven’t known for years.”
“I only know three people like that.”
“Then keep it to three.”
The call ended.
Leo stood motionless while Maya waited.
At last, she spoke.
“What did he say?”
Leo lifted his gaze.
Down the block, parked beneath a tall maple tree, sat a long black car with tinted windows.
It had followed them all the way from school.
“He said the game just changed,” Leo answered.
Chapter 4: The Road Daniel Never Finished
The coffee shop on Marietta Street was nearly empty at nine o’clock on Saturday morning.
Leo sat in the back booth with his hands wrapped around a paper cup he hadn’t touched.
Across from him, Maya was pretending to read a menu.
Near the window, Anna sat alone at a small table, watching the street.
Leo had argued with his mother about coming.
She had argued back.
In the end, they had reached a compromise: she would stay close enough to see him, and far enough away not to frighten the person he was meeting.
The person arrived four minutes late.
Neil Foster looked nothing like the polished young man from Dr. Carter’s office.
His shirt was wrinkled.
His eyes were red.
He wore a baseball cap pulled low, and he kept glancing over his shoulder as though the walls might report him.
He slid into the booth and said, “You came alone.”
“No,” Leo said.
“That’s my friend.
And my mother’s over there.”
Foster flinched, then nodded.
“Smart.”
“You sent the message.”
“I had to.”
Maya looked up from the menu.
“You deleted the files.”
“Yes.”
Nobody spoke.
Foster pushed his cap back and rubbed his face.
“I’m not going to pretend I’m a good person.
Three years ago, I was drowning in student loans.
I had a degree in information systems and no job.
A man named Victor Sloane offered me a position inside the district.
He said it was just consulting.
I would keep an eye on certain contracts.
Maybe flag complaints that might damage ‘important relationships.’”
“Complaints like Ethan’s,” Maya said.
Foster looked away.
“Yes.”
“You helped them bury it.”
“I didn’t know what happened afterward.
I didn’t ask.”
“That’s worse,” Maya replied.
“I know.”
Foster’s voice cracked.
“I’ve known for a while.”
Leo watched him carefully.
His father had always said that frightened people often tell the truth faster than confident ones.
“Why come here?” he asked.
“Because last night I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.”
Foster reached into his jacket and placed a small silver flash drive on the table.
“Sloane’s head of security is a man named Ray Dunmore.
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