Chapter 6 - Blood in the Company
We drove back to New York in silence.
By then, I had made two calls.
The first went to naval legal counsel.
The second went to a federal investigator I had known for twelve years.
His name was Daniel Cho.
I trusted him because he had once investigated a procurement scandal involving one of my own senior officers and had refused every attempt to make the problem disappear.
“Do not touch anything else,” he told me.
“Too late.”
“That sentence is why admirals give investigators ulcers.”
“I have evidence.”
“Then protect it.”
Charles kept the originals.
I carried encrypted copies.
By the time we reached Manhattan, federal agents were already reviewing the death of Peter Vale.
The official cause had changed.
He had not died from heart failure.
A toxicology screen found digoxin in his system.
Too much.
Peter Vale had been poisoned.
The Rowe family wedding was no longer simply the scene of a reunion.
It was the beginning of a murder investigation.
Griffin was waiting when I returned to the St. Aurelia.
He stood inside my room.
I stopped in the doorway.
“How did you get in?”
“Dad owns part of this hotel.”
“Of course he does.”
He looked terrible.
Tie gone.
Shirt wrinkled.
Eyes bloodshot.
“Calder told me.”
I entered but left the door open.
“Told you what?”
“About the warehouse.”
I said nothing.
“Tell me the truth, Maren.”
“For once?”
His jaw tightened.
“I signed paperwork in 2005.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised him.
“You do?”
“You were arrogant, selfish, and desperate for Dad’s approval.”
“Thanks.”
“But I don’t think you knowingly sold restricted military technology.”
His face collapsed.
He sat.
“I remember the forms.”
“Tell me.”
“Dad said we were rerouting specialized navigation systems to European commercial clients.”
“Did you read the manifests?”
“No.”
“Why?”
He laughed bitterly.
“Because I was twenty-four and thought Dad could never be wrong.”
I understood that better than he knew.
Griffin looked toward me.
“Did Mother know?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“She protected me.”
“And failed me.”
He opened his eyes.
The words hurt him.
They were supposed to.
Not because I wanted revenge.
Because truth without pain is often just decoration.
“I didn’t know he was using you,” Griffin said.
“You laughed when he threw me out.”
He looked down.
“I know.”
“You told me I would come crawling back.”
“I know.”
“You mailed my letters back unopened.”
His head lifted.
“I never received letters.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You wrote?”
“Every Christmas for four years.”
“No.”
Something cold moved through me.
“I sent letters to Mother too.”
Griffin shook his head.
“I never saw them.”
Then we both knew.
Our father had intercepted them.
Twenty-one years of silence suddenly looked less natural.
More engineered.
Griffin stood.
“I need to confront him.”
“No.”
“He lied to both of us.”
“And Peter Vale is dead.”
That stopped him.
“You think Dad—”
“I don’t know.”
“No.”
“You don’t know either.”
“My father is a lot of things, but he’s not a murderer.”
I studied him.
“Then help prove it.”
“How?”
“Give investigators full access to Rowe Corporate Security.”
His face tightened.
“That would expose everything.”
“Yes.”
“Trade secrets. Clients. Contracts.”
“Yes.”
“You could destroy the company.”
“Peter Vale is dead.”
We stared at each other.
Finally, Griffin said, “I’ll do it.”
That was the first honorable decision I had seen him make in twenty-one years.
By afternoon, Daniel Cho had a warrant.
Corporate security records revealed that Peter Vale’s hospital access badge had been generated remotely using executive authorization.
The request came from Griffin’s office.
He went white when he heard.
“I didn’t do it.”
Daniel nodded.
“We know.”
“How?”
“You were in the hotel ballroom on six different cameras at the time.”
Someone had framed him.
The authorization trail had been routed through his login.
But the server logs showed manual override from a private terminal.
Only three people had physical access to that terminal.
Griffin.
My father.
And Rowe Corporation’s longtime security chief.
Thomas Rusk.
I knew Rusk.
He had been my father’s driver when I was a teenager.
Quiet.
Loyal.
Always watching.
Daniel issued a search order for Rusk.
He had already disappeared.
That evening, Calder called.
His voice was shaking.
“Aunt Maren.”
“What?”
“Grandfather is missing.”
My chest tightened.
“From where?”
“His townhouse.”
“Any sign of forced entry?”
“No.”
Then Calder said something worse.
“His safe is empty.”
I stood.
“What was inside?”
“Company records.”
“Which records?”
“Everything connected to the current defense contract.”
For the first time, Project Harbor and my new command intersected directly.
That was bad enough.
Then Daniel called.
“We found Rusk’s vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Near the East River.”
“Rusk?”
“Gone.”
“Anything in the car?”
Daniel paused.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
“Of whom?”
“You.”
The photograph had been taken less than an hour earlier.
Outside my hotel.
May you like
Someone was no longer trying to protect a twenty-one-year-old secret.
Someone was preparing for the present.
