Chapter 2 - The Impossible Name
Marcus Reed arrived downstairs four minutes later with two security men.
Roman stopped them outside the room.
“Nobody touches anything.”
Marcus stared past him.
“What happened?”
“Claire found him.”
Marcus looked at her.
“You did this?”
Claire stiffened.
Roman immediately stepped between them.
“Wrong question.”
Marcus frowned.
Roman continued.
“The question is how an armed stranger reached my cellar.”
Marcus glanced at the bypass device.
His face changed.
“That model can spoof older Vale security nodes.”
“I know.”
“Only our technical staff have the encryption architecture.”
“And family.”
Marcus understood.
“Adrian.”
Claire spoke quietly.
“That’s the name he used.”
Marcus looked skeptical.
“Claire, are you certain?”
She met his eyes.
“I know what I heard.”
Roman turned toward her.
“Start from the beginning.”
Claire swallowed.
“He grabbed my wrist when I tried to leave.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“I pulled away. He slipped on the broken jar.”
She pointed toward the collapsed shelf.
“He hit it. Everything came down.”
“You didn’t attack him?”
“No.”
“He fell?”
“Yes.”
“And the blood?”
Claire looked at her sleeve.
“I checked whether he was alive.”
Roman nodded.
That explained the image upstairs.
Not an attacker hiding evidence.
A terrified employee trying to wash a stranger’s blood from her uniform.
Marcus’s phone buzzed.
He checked it.
“We found something.”
“What?”
“Camera blackout. East service corridor. Eleven minutes.”
“When?”
“Starting at 1:47.”
Roman looked toward Claire.
She had discovered the intruder shortly afterward.
“Who authorized the system reset?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Your credentials.”
“I was asleep.”
“I know.”
Claire whispered, “Then somebody copied them.”
Roman looked at her.
“Or somebody who already had them used them.”
His phone vibrated.
A message.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Roman opened it.
You should have stayed out of Blackridge.
Claire saw his expression.
“What?”
Roman turned the screen toward Marcus.
Marcus cursed quietly.
Then the lights went out.
Claire gasped.
Roman reached for her immediately.
“Stay beside me.”
Emergency lighting flashed red along the cellar walls.
Marcus checked his radio.
Nothing.
“Communications are down.”
Roman stared at the bypass device in his hand.
“It’s started.”
A sound came from the corridor.
Footsteps.
Claire whispered, “Roman.”
It was the first time she had used his first name.
He looked at her.
She pointed toward the floor.
A thin strip of light had appeared beneath another cellar door.
Roman frowned.
“That room has no electricity.”
Claire’s voice dropped.
May you like
“Then somebody’s in there.”
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