CHAPTER 2 — THE REASON SHE CAME ALONE

Briggs forced a laugh.

It sounded thin and unnatural.

“Investigate what?”

Evelyn turned toward the reception desk.

“The fear in this building.”

No one moved.

Daniel glanced across the lobby.

“Mother, perhaps we should continue upstairs.”

“No.”

Evelyn’s answer was immediate.

“If we go upstairs now, they’ll have time to prepare.”

Briggs’s eyes flickered toward the security cameras.

Evelyn noticed.

She noticed everything.

For six months, anonymous complaints had reached her private office.

Employees described intimidation.

Illegal surveillance.

Retaliatory firings.

Missing financial records.

Some claimed Briggs had used security personnel to threaten anyone who questioned senior management.

Each complaint had disappeared after being forwarded to the corporate ethics department.

Then, three weeks earlier, a young accountant named Rachel Cole had sent Evelyn a handwritten letter.

Not an email.

Not a company memo.

A handwritten letter mailed from another town.

Mrs. Davenport, people are being hurt inside the company your husband built. Please come without warning. Trust no one on the executive floor.

Rachel had vanished two days later.

The company claimed she had resigned.

Her family said she had never come home.

That was why Evelyn had entered through the front doors without an escort.

No announcement.

No motorcade.

No executive assistant.

She wanted to see how an ordinary person would be treated.

And within seven minutes, Briggs had given her an answer.

Evelyn looked at the receptionist.

“What is your name?”

The young woman swallowed.

“Claire, ma’am.”

“Claire, did you see Mr. Briggs grab me?”

Claire’s eyes darted toward Briggs.

He stared back at her.

A warning.

Claire’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

Briggs smiled faintly.

“She didn’t see anything.”

“I asked Claire,” Evelyn replied.

Claire’s hands trembled beneath the desk.

Daniel stepped closer.

“You are protected from retaliation.”

Claire gave a bitter, frightened laugh.

“That’s what the last person was told.”

Briggs’s expression changed.

Only for a second.

But Evelyn saw it.

“Who was the last person?” she asked.

Claire looked down.

Briggs moved toward the desk.

“This conversation is finished.”

Daniel blocked him.

Claire’s breathing quickened.

Then she reached beneath the keyboard.

She removed a small silver key.

“Rachel Cole,” she whispered.

Several employees gasped.

Claire held the key out to Evelyn.

“Rachel gave me this the night before she disappeared.”

Briggs lunged forward.

Daniel caught him by the chest and shoved him back.

“Don’t.”

Briggs froze.

Claire placed the key in Evelyn’s palm.

“She told me it opened a locker in the underground archive.”

“What’s inside?” Evelyn asked.

Claire’s eyes filled with tears.

“Proof.”

Briggs turned sharply toward the security station.

“Lock down the building!”

The guards hesitated.

Briggs slammed his fist against the desk.

“That is an order!”

Metal shutters began descending over the lobby entrances.

Employees cried out.

Daniel pulled out his phone.

There was no signal.

Briggs smiled.

This time, there was no fear in his face.

Only satisfaction.

“You should have stayed upstairs, Mrs. Davenport.”

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The final shutter crashed into place.

“And you should never have come alone.”