Chapter 10
The night air was biting as Martha stepped out the back door and walked across the dark lawn toward the detached workshop. The green LED light of the security camera under the eaves blinked steadily, tracking her movement with mechanical precision. She didn't look up; her eyes were fixed on the exterior wooden staircase leading up to Arthur’s apartment. The blue light from his server rack pulsed through the lower service hatch, casting eerie geometric patterns across the gravel driveway.
She climbed the wooden stairs, each step groaning softly beneath her boots. When she reached the landing, she didn't bother knocking gently. She raised her hand and struck the solid oak door three firm, resonant times.
The lock clicked almost immediately, as if he had been standing right behind the wood waiting for her. The door swung open, revealing Arthur—or Julian—standing in the brightly lit interior of the apartment. He wasn't wearing his usual customer-service smile. His wire-rimmed glasses caught the harsh overhead light, and his expression was cold, analytical, and entirely composed.
"Martha," he said, his voice completely devoid of surprise. "I was wondering when you'd come up. Please, come in."
She stepped past him into the small, warm apartment. The room was dominated by dual-monitor work stations, humming server towers, and piles of printed county maps, legal briefs, and property deeds spread haphazardly across a folding table. On the center monitor, a live high-definition feed of her own back yard played on an endless loop.
"You didn't need to hack the county records to find us, Julian," Martha said calmly, closing the door behind her and keeping her hands relaxed at her sides.
Julian froze for a fraction of a second, the name hanging in the air between them like a dropped blade. A muscle in his jaw twitched, but his composure remained intact. He closed the door and turned to face her, folding his arms across his chest.
"So you figured it out," Julian said quietly, his voice dropping an octave. "Took you long enough. For a while, I thought your husband's memory loss was an act to keep me off balance."
"David’s memory isn't an act," Martha replied steadily. "He's sick, Julian. He's been sick for years. And he has carried the guilt of your father's death every single day since ninety-nine."
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Julian scoffed, a bitter, humorless sound. "Guilt? Is that what you call burying my father's financial records under the drainage easement and pretending he just walked away? My mother raised me on stories of a man who was hunted down because he tried to expose corrupt county officials—officials who still hold office today, and whose property lines happen to overlap with this very house."
"Your father wasn't just exposing them, Julian," Martha said, her voice rising slightly with restrained emotion. "He was working with them until his conscience caught up with him too late. And the men who killed him are still looking for the master ledger. That's why we hid it."
