Chapter 6 - The Deleted Personnel File
The disconnected call left a blank silence in the laundry room.
I tried Daniel again.
No answer.
Julian forced the service door another inch. The cabinet legs shrieked across the tile.
“We can’t stay here,” Rachel said.
“Where does the other door lead?”
“To the garage corridor.”
“Then move.”
She opened a narrow utility closet and pulled aside a rack of cleaning supplies. Behind it was another concealed panel.
The mansion had more hidden routes than I remembered, and Julian seemed to know nearly all of them.
We entered the garage corridor just as the cabinet toppled behind us.
Julian’s footsteps followed.
Rachel locked the panel and hurried toward the garage. My shoulder throbbed beneath the dressing. Each breath felt shallow, but my mind had become unnaturally clear.
“Tell me about Mercer.”
“I worked field operations.”
“For Daniel?”
“For his father. Daniel was in college.”
“You said Eleanor gave you instructions.”
“She was a client.”
“What kind of client?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Private family risk management.”
“That sounds like surveillance.”
“It was.”
The corridor ended at a steel fire door. Rachel entered a code.
Rejected.
She tried again.
Rejected.
“Julian changed it,” she said.
I looked at the keypad. A faint smear marked four numbers: 1, 4, 6, 9.
Julian reused dates when he thought no one noticed. His mother’s birthday was June 14. He often reversed the numbers for bank codes.
I entered 9-4-1-6.
The lock released.
Rachel stared at me.
“I’ve watched him for five years,” I said. “I just kept pretending I hadn’t learned anything.”
We stepped into the garage.
My car was gone.
So was Rachel’s catering van.
Only Julian’s black sedan remained, positioned nose-first toward the closed gate.
“He planned to control transportation,” I said.
Rachel moved toward a cabinet containing emergency equipment. “There should be a medical kit and an old landline.”
I searched Julian’s sedan through the window.
A folder lay on the passenger seat.
The Mercer Security logo was printed across the front.
I used the silver key from my handbag to open the sedan. Julian had never known I kept a duplicate.
Inside the folder were revised security contracts, access logs, and a personnel report.
Rachel’s name appeared on the first page.
STATUS: TERMINATED.
REASON: UNAUTHORIZED DISCLOSURE FOLLOWING VALE INCIDENT.
The date was eleven years earlier.
Below it was Daniel Mercer’s signature.
“He said he was in college,” I murmured.
“He was.”
“Then how did he sign this?”
Rachel took the report.
Her thumb brushed the ink.
“This isn’t a scanned signature. It was signed recently.”
A backdated termination report.
Created to make Rachel appear responsible if the old case resurfaced.
The garage lights flickered.
Julian had entered the corridor.
“Clara,” he called, almost gently. “You need medical attention. Come out before you make the injury permanent.”
Rachel handed me the documents.
“Get in the car.”
“The gate is closed.”
“I can open it manually.”
She ran toward the control box.
Julian emerged through the fire door.
His eyes went directly to the folder in my hand.
For the first time that night, true fear crossed his face.
He rushed toward me.
I climbed into the driver’s seat and locked the doors. Julian slammed both palms against the window.
“Give me those papers!”
Rachel opened the electrical panel near the gate. Sparks snapped as she pulled the manual release.
The gate began to rise.
Then the garage speakers came alive.
Daniel’s voice filled the room.
“Clara, do not leave with Rachel. The woman beside you is not Rachel Ames.”
Rachel stopped moving.
Julian smiled through the glass.
May you like
And the woman at the control box slowly turned toward me with the release lever still in her hand.
📖 Discover whose identity the woman in the catering uniform had stolen—and why Julian looked relieved in CHAPTER 7. 👇
