That's not luck. That's somebody who knows this building systems better than I do, and I've been maintaining them for 6 years. So, it's someone in facilities or IT, or somebody who got the master password from someone in facilities or IT. Marcus rubbed his eyes.
He'd been staring at logs until the numbers swam. Claire, I'm going to be straight with you because you hired me to be. This isn't some outside hacker. This is someone with deep access to this building and deep knowledge of your schedule and he hesitated and your panic attacks.
They knew you'd be alone and vulnerable on that floor at that hour. They didn't just guess. They knew. So, I've got to ask you a hard question and I need you not to shut me down when I ask it.
Claire looked at him steadily. Ask. Who knows about the attacks? About the fact that you fall apart when you're alone?
Who in your whole life knows that Claire Whitmore isn't made of steel? The question landed hard. Marcus watched her want to deflect it. Watched the reflex to protect the secret rise up in her the way it had risen up her whole life and watched her with visible effort choose to answer honestly instead because she'd hired a man on the promise of truth and truth cut both ways.
Very few people, she said finally. My therapist, who I'd stake my life on. A former assistant who left 3 years ago on good terms, moved to Portland, has no reason to hurt me. She paused and something crossed her face.
And my brother. Marcus went still. You have a brother? Alexander?
She said the name like it tasted of metal. Younger. 4 years younger. He knows about the attacks because he's the reason I started having them. She turned away toward the black glass of the window, and when she spoke again, her voice had gone flat and careful, the voice people use for wounds they've decided not to feel.
Our father built this company. When he died, he left it to me. Not to Alexander. Me.
And Alexander has spent every day of the 11 years since deciding that was a theft. That our father was manipulated or senile. Or that I poisoned him against his own son. None of which is true.
The truth is simpler and crueler than that. Our father looked at both his children and decided which one could run his life's work, and he chose me. And Alexander has never forgiven either of us for it. Where is he now?
On my board. Claire laughed, and there was no humor in it at all. That was the compromise. My father's will gave Alexander a board seat and a substantial stake, but no operational control.
So for 11 years, my little brother has sat at my table, drawn a fortune he didn't earn, and waited. Watched. Looked for the crack. She turned back to face Marcus.
And the crack is my panic attacks, Marcus. That's the one thing that could take this company from me legally. Not scandal. Not failure.
The company's never done better. But if the board believed I was mentally unfit to lead, there's a clause. There's always a clause. Incapacity.
And if enough directors voted that I couldn't be trusted at the helm because I'm psychologically unstable, she spread her hands. Then control reverts. And guess who's next in line? Alexander.
Alexander. Marcus sat down slowly in the chair across from her. His mind was moving fast now, the pieces sliding together with a terrible logic. So Friday night wasn't about ruining you with a sex scandal.
Not really. The scandal was just the delivery system. The point was to create a moment. A moment where you'd be found publicly having a full breakdown in a compromising situation, unable to explain yourself, unable to hold it together.
A moment your board couldn't unsee. He looked at her. He wasn't trying to make you look guilty. He was trying to make you look broken.
And I was just the guy who was supposed to be standing next to the broken thing. Claire was very quiet. "Yes," she said. "I think that's exactly right." "And it almost worked," Marcus said.
It came within one decision of working. If you'd let your security call the police, if I'd panicked and run. If you'd broken down completely instead of pulling yourself together. There'd have been a police report.
A black intruder, a hysterical CEO. And by Monday morning, your whole board would have had the story. And the story would have been Claire Whitmore had a psychotic break and got a man arrested for a crime that never happened. You'd have been finished.
And I'd have been in Cook County. And my daughter'd have been in the system. "But it didn't work," Claire said. "Because you didn't run.
And because I didn't break." "No," Marcus agreed. "It didn't work. Which means" And here he felt the cold settle into his stomach again, the same cold from Friday night. "Which means he's going to try again.
Harder. Because now he's exposed himself. He's shown his hand. If you ever prove what he did Friday night, he's not just off the board, he's in prison.
So he can't stop now. He has to finish it before you finish him." Marcus looked up at her. We just went from him hunting you to us hunting each other. And he's got 11 years of head start and a board seat and the master facility's password.
All I've got is a badge and a hunch." "You've got me," Claire said. "That's the thing I keep trying to make you understand." Marcus leaned forward. "You're the target. You can't be my partner in this and be the bait at the same time because the second he realizes you're on to him, you become the most dangerous person in his world and he'll stop trying to embarrass you and start trying to end you for real.
Right now he thinks Friday was a fluke. He thinks you got lucky. He does not know you've got a maintenance man reading elevator logs in an alcove down the hall. And that that little bit of not knowing that's the only advantage we have.
The second we lose it, we lose everything. Claire studied him for a long moment. You've thought about this a great deal. I don't sleep, Marcus said simply.
Haven't since Friday. I lie there and I think about Nia in that spare bed and I think about how close it came and I think about all the ways it could still go wrong. That's what I do now. I think about the ways it goes wrong so I can get in front of them.
He met her eyes. That's the job you hired me for, isn't it? To see what your $4,000 consultants can't. Well, here's what I see.
I see a man who's waited 11 years and just took his best shot and missed. And a man like that isn't going to wait 11 more. He's going to move fast and he's going to move soon and when he moves, it's not going to look like Friday. Friday was surgical.
Next time, if he thinks he's losing, it's going to be a hammer. The office was silent except for the low breath of the climate system. Then we need to move faster than he does, Claire said finally. What do you need?
I need to know his access. Everything he can touch in this building, every system, every account, every door. I need to know his schedule, his patterns, who he talks to, who's loyal to him. If he's got help inside and he's got to have help, no one man does all this alone, I need to know who.
Marcus stood. And I need one more thing and you're not going to like it. Tell me. I need you to keep having your panic attacks where he can see them.