Chapter 13 - The Midnight Visitor
The sharp rap at the front door echoed through the hollow beach house like a gunshot. Maddie froze, her hand hovering over the encrypted thumb drive plugged into her laptop. Uncle Thomas immediately moved to the corner of the room, sliding open a weathered floorboard to reveal an old hunting rifle, his movements practiced and devoid of panic.
"Stay back by the desk," Thomas whispered harshly, flicking the safety off the rifle with a soft click.
A heavy silence settled over the room, broken only by the relentless crashing of the ocean waves against the pilings underneath the house.
"Maddie! I know you're in there!" a frantic voice called out from the porch. It wasn't one of Sterling’s mercenaries. It was Chloe.
Maddie exhaled a sharp breath, her shoulders sagging with relief. "Uncle Thomas, wait. It's Chloe."
Thomas lowered the rifle slightly but kept it ready as Maddie hurried to the front door and unlocked the heavy bolt. She swung it open to reveal Chloe standing on the porch, drenched in rain, her hair plastered to her face, holding a shivering laptop bag against her chest like a shield.
"Chloe? What are you doing here? How did you find this place?" Maddie asked, pulling her inside out of the downpour.
Chloe slammed the door shut behind her, sliding the deadbolt back into place with shaking hands. "I didn't lead anyone here, Maddie, I swear. But my office was just raided less than twenty minutes after you left downtown."
Thomas stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. "Raided by whom? The police?"
"No," Chloe panted, leaning against the hallway wall to catch her breath. "Not federal agents. Private contractors wearing unmarked tactical gear. They didn't care about the servers or the financial leaks. They were looking for physical backups. Specifically, a blue leather ledger."
Maddie’s blood ran cold. She looked over at the dining table where the heavy wooden box of old documents sat—the box Thomas had pulled from the attic. Inside that box, resting beneath her mother’s old medical journals, was a faded blue leather ledger belonging to her late father, who had audited Apex Capital’s founding accounts twenty years ago before his sudden, accidental death.
"My father's ledger," Maddie whispered, horror dawning on her. "He didn't die in a car accident, did he, Uncle Thomas?"
Thomas slowly lowered the rifle, his weather-beaten face aging ten years in a single second. He looked away, staring out the rain-streaked window toward the dark horizon.
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"No, Maddie," Thomas said quietly. "They murdered him. And they've been waiting for you to finish the audit ever since."
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