And someone could buy fear at a discount.
Ethan folded the paper.
“There’s another player.”
Lupita whispered, “Who?”
Before Ethan could answer, his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He almost ignored it.
Then he answered.
A man’s voice said, “Mr. Vance, you should have left the hotel with your daughter last night.”
Ethan went still.
The voice continued.
“Some doors are expensive to open.”
The line went dead.
PART 4
Ethan did not tell Lupita about the call right away.
Not because he wanted to hide it.
Because fear spreads faster than facts, and he had a daughter upstairs with chocolate on her pajamas and a red ribbon in her hair.
He called corporate security instead.
“Lock down access logs,” he said. “Pull exterior cameras from midnight to now. Freeze Robert Sterling’s email, personal device backups, expense reports, vendor payments, and all deletion records.”
The head of security, Aaron Price, did not ask why.
