Victor's expression changed slightly.
For the first time, he seemed less confident than tired.
"Ask yourself a better question."
"What?"
"Why did the person who wrote 'help me' choose a stranger?"
Evelyn stopped breathing for a second.
Victor straightened.
She stared at him.
"You never saw that note."
Victor said nothing.
"No one saw it."
His silence answered more than words could.
Evelyn stood.
"How do you know about it?"
Victor walked toward the door.
"Because whoever you're fighting has been watching you much longer than you realize."
"Victor."
He stopped.
"Are you helping him?"
Victor looked over his shoulder.
"Some choices stop being choices once you've made the first one."
Then he left.
Evelyn stared after him.
Her heart was pounding.
She grabbed her phone.
Daniel answered immediately.
"Where are you?"
"Outside Lily's school."
"Leave."
"What?"
"Take Lily somewhere safe."
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
"Evelyn, what's happening?"
"I think Victor is involved, but I don't think he's controlling this."
"Who is?"
"I don't know his name."
She looked at the photographs.
"But I think I finally understand what he wants."
That evening Daniel took Lily to his sister Rebecca's house across town.
He told Rebecca only enough to make her understand that Lily needed to stay there overnight.
Rebecca did not ask many questions.
She simply looked at her brother and said, "Whatever you're doing, don't make her lose two parents."
Daniel carried those words with him all the way back downtown.
Grant Meridian's headquarters was nearly empty by then.
Evelyn met him in the underground parking garage.
She was holding a small black flash drive.
"This came from Victor's office."
Daniel looked at it.
"How?"
"Company security copied the contents of a storage device listed in his corporate asset inventory. Officially, it was supposed to contain archived budget models."
"And unofficially?"
"Nobody knows."
Daniel took it.
"What's on it?"
"Nothing we can read."
He looked at her.
"Encrypted?"
"Yes."
"You expect me to break the encryption?"
Evelyn shook her head.
"I expect you to notice something."
Daniel gave her a tired look.
"That's becoming a dangerous job description."
For the first time, Evelyn almost smiled.
They used an isolated maintenance computer that was not connected to Grant Meridian's main network.
Daniel inserted the drive.
Hundreds of encrypted file names appeared.
He tried several obvious access routes.
Nothing.
He inspected the directory structure.
Then he noticed a three-digit sequence hidden inside the recovery partition.
Daniel stared at it.
"What's August fourteenth?"
Evelyn looked at him.
"What?"
"Eight-fourteen. Does that date mean anything?"
She thought.
Then her expression shifted.
"Grant Meridian's original incorporation date."
Daniel looked at her silver watch.
"When was that watch made?"
Evelyn instinctively touched it.
"It belonged to my father."
"Take it off."
"What?"
"Please."