Chapter 6 - TWENTY MINUTES
The office camera covered the doorway but not the desk itself.
Daniel entered at 3:18 p.m.
He carried nothing.
He left at 3:39 carrying a thin red folder.
I knew that folder.
My estate documents.
It contained sample signatures, identity-verification copies, company certificates, and the trust summary for Lily’s inherited shares.
Ava stared at the footage beside me.
“I thought he was taking tax documents.”
“You didn’t look?”
“No.”
Anger rose.
I wanted to unload it on her.
Then I remembered how easily Daniel had used certainty.
Claire said.
Claire wants.
Claire approved.
Ava’s failure mattered.
So did Daniel’s manipulation.
“I’m angry,” I told her.
“I know.”
“This changes how access works from now on.”
She nodded through tears.
“I understand.”
“Did he ever ask you for passwords?”
“No.”
“Devices?”
Her eyes changed.
“What?”
“Daniel borrowed your old tablet once.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“The same week.”
“Why?”
“He said the wedding-planning application worked better on yours.”
I had forgotten.
A black tablet sat in a drawer at home because I used a newer one.
It remained logged into several personal accounts.
We collected it without opening anything ourselves and gave it to the forensic consultant.
The logs answered within hours.
Daniel had accessed my electronic-signature account.
He exported a certificate.
He downloaded identity documents.
Then he deleted the security email notifying me.
The exact path Maya had feared.
But the logs contained another account.
Bennett Hospitality’s secure shareholder portal.
Daniel opened Lily’s trust page.
He did not have authorization.
My tablet did because I was Lily’s legal guardian and the company allowed me view-only access.
He downloaded her holdings summary.
That explained why Lily’s name appeared in his paperwork.
Not because he could transfer her twelve percent directly.
He could not.
But he needed to calculate voting control.
My eighteen percent plus the block Victor already expected to influence could shift major corporate decisions.
Then Lily returned home from school with my mother.
I had kept her away from discussions.
She walked into the kitchen and saw the red folder sealed in an evidence bag.
Her face changed.
“That.”
I crouched.
“You’ve seen this before?”
“Daniel had it.”
“When?”
She looked nervous.
I stopped myself from piling on questions.
“Tell me only what you remember.”
“He told me not to touch it.”
“Okay.”
“He said grown-up money.”
I nodded.
Then Lily added something without prompting.
“He asked me where Dad’s key was.”
Michael’s key.
My late husband had died four years earlier from an aneurysm.
Before his death, he used a hardware security token for Bennett Hospitality’s legacy shareholder system.
I kept it in a locked memory box with old watches and letters.
It no longer authorized transactions.
But it could access archived corporate records.
“Did you tell Daniel?”
Lily shook her head.
“He said he needed it to help you.”
My throat tightened.
“Did he ever find it?”
“I don’t know.”
I checked the memory box.
The hardware token was gone.
Daniel had not only stolen current access.
May you like
He had been searching the company’s past.
📖 Daniel copied my signature and Lily’s holdings, but the missing token from her late father’s belongings suggested he was hunting something buried deep in Bennett Hospitality’s records. 👇
