Chapter 8 - MARCUS CHECKS THE SECURITY SYSTEMMarcus locked the maintenance gate remotely.
Aaron’s sedan stopped before reaching the road.
Security officers surrounded it.
Aaron stepped out with empty hands.
The ledger was gone.
The passenger seat held only a black leather cover.
“He passed it to someone,” Marcus said.
“When?”
“During the blackout.”
Security footage from the east corridor showed Aaron entering the service tunnel beneath the mansion.
The tunnel connected to an old greenhouse exit.
Another vehicle waited there for ninety seconds.
Its license plate was concealed.
Aaron refused to speak without an attorney.
He had worked under Marcus for six years.
Passed every background check.
Protected Emma during public events.
Now he was accused of attacking a technician and stealing evidence.
Marcus watched officers take him away.
“I hired him.”
“That does not make his decisions yours.”
“I gave him access.”
“So did I.”
We both carried responsibility.
Neither of us needed to pretend it was guilt.
The security review revealed how Aaron manipulated the system.
He installed a maintenance program that created seven-minute recording gaps.
Each gap looked like ordinary server synchronization.
There had been twelve gaps over three years.
The first occurred two days after Laura recorded her message.
Someone entered the study that night.
The second happened during her funeral.
The most recent occurred when Victor opened the safe.
Aaron had been searching for years.
“What else did he remove?” I asked.
Marcus displayed still images reconstructed from diagnostic frames.
In one, Aaron carried a thin red folder from the study.
In another, he photographed documents inside the safe.
The red folder matched Laura’s private legal files.
Aaron had given Malcolm information long before stealing the ledger.
Agent Reed examined Aaron’s financial history.
Monthly payments entered an account held by his sister.
The money came from a construction company connected to Malcolm.
Marcus’s expression hardened.
“He sold us.”
“No,” I said. “He sold access.”
Trust cannot be physically handed away.
Access can.
That distinction mattered as we rebuilt the truth.
Then a technician recovered the last voice command issued during the seven-minute gap.
A man said:
“If the girl saw us, move to the second plan.”
The voice did not belong to Victor.
It did not belong to Aaron.
I recognized it anyway.
May you like
Malcolm.
My uncle had known Emma was awake.
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