They had to have access to the building schematics, to the transfer switch, to the communications hub. They had to have planned this before the storm used the storm as cover. Yes, he said. That narrows it. She finally looked at him.
I keep coming back to the same name. You don't have to tell me. I know. She paused. But you're the only person in this building I'm certain.
Didn't do it. Which currently makes you the only person I can talk to. He held her gaze. Ethan Caldwell. She said, "My co, he's been with the company for 13 years.
He has access to everything. He was in the office until 8:00 tonight. " Gerald logged him out. She stopped. "He's also one of the two people with authorization to move the money I found. " "Has he been acting differently? " "He's been acting perfectly," she said. "Which is worse?
Because Ethan is a man who is charming when he's comfortable and very very smooth when he's cornered. And for the past two weeks since I started pulling those records, he's been the most pleasant, most cooperative, most engaged version of himself I've seen in years. She let out a short, almost bitter breath, which means he knew I was looking and he was managing you masterfully, her jaw tightened. I've known him for 13 years, and he was managing me like I was a quarterly report. The storm hit the building with a sound like a truck collision, a full pressure surge, wind-driven, the kind of gust that made the whole structure move, and both of them went still for a second.
Instinctively, then it passed, and the building settled back into its groaning, and from below them, they heard a sound that neither of them could mistake. A door. Somewhere on floor 16, a door had opened. Darius rose to his feet in one smooth movement. Victoria rose with him.
He put two fingers against his lips. She nodded. He crossed to the security monitors and looked at the screens. Most were dark, but one the hallway camera for floor 16. East corridor was still running on its own independent backup.
He found it on the panel and leaned close to the screen. The corridor was dim and grainy, but he could see it. A figure moving steadily down the hall toward the security dispatch office. Not rushing, not hesitating, carrying something in one hand. He couldn't make out the face, but the build, the posture, the way the figure moved.
He stepped back from the monitor, looked at Victoria. She had seen it too, was already looking at him with something in her face that was not quite a name and not quite uncertainty, but was close enough to both to tell him everything he needed to know. 12 minutes, he said quietly. We need to make it 12 more minutes. She looked at the door, looked at him, and Darius Coleman, who had spent four years being invisible, who had spent four years keeping his head down and his name off the list and his daughter safe and his world small, stood in a room on the 16th floor of a building in the middle of a storm, and understood that tonight, invisible was not going to be an option.