Chapter 4: The Morning Performance
At 8:17 a.m. the investors sat in the downstairs office while Derek explained the company’s stable position.
I watched the live feed on Elena’s tablet from the hospital room. Derek’s voice carried the same measured confidence he had used at my father’s funeral and at every subsequent meeting where he presented himself as the man who had stepped in to save what grief had nearly destroyed. Marlene remained just inside the frame, offering coffee and quiet reinforcement. Neither of them knew the primary accounts had been frozen for nearly two hours. Neither of them knew the overnight recording of Derek forcing me out of bed and Marlene laughing in the doorway was already secured.
The first visible crack appeared at 8:34 a.m. when Derek attempted to pull a current liquidity summary from the system. The request returned an access error. He covered it with a smooth comment about temporary software issues and continued the presentation from printed materials he had prepared the night before. Marlene’s smile tightened by a fraction. She left the room briefly. The hallway camera caught her entering the small office where the secondary laptop was kept. She tried the login credentials again. The system rejected them. She stared at the screen longer than necessary before returning to the investors with a fresh pot of coffee.
Elena logged every attempt.
“They’re realizing the money doesn’t move,” she said.
“They’ll reach for the physical files next,” I answered. “The forged voting authorization, the backup drive with the vendor invoices, the folder of signed transfers. Derek keeps them in the lower drawer of the desk my father used. He still thinks I don’t know the combination.”
On the feed, the investor meeting continued. Derek recovered his rhythm, speaking about projected contracts and the strength of the company’s reputation. He did not know the reputation was already under quiet review, or that the four million dollars moved into accounts tied to Marlene had been fully mapped and indexed weeks earlier. He performed stability while the ground under the performance had already been removed.
At 9:12 a.m. the investors left. Derek walked them to the door with the same composed posture. The moment the door closed, the performance dropped. He turned on Marlene.
“What did you do to the accounts?”
“Nothing. Check your own access.”
They moved back into the office. Derek tried the primary system again. Failed. He opened the lower drawer and removed the folder. The camera angle caught the edge of the forged authorization document as he flipped through it. Marlene stood over him, voice low and sharp.
“If she’s gone to anyone, we need to move the rest today.”
May you like
Derek’s reply was quieter, but the microphone still captured it.
“Then we move it before she surfaces.”
