Chapter 9 - The Name on the Ledger.
The note was unsigned.
That made it more dangerous than a threat.
A threat told Adrian where to look.
This told him to doubt everything.
Cole photographed the archive room with an offline camera.
Nolan checked the vents, walls, and floor.
"No one here now."
Adrian looked at Celeste's robe.
"She came through this room."
"Probably."
"Victor too."
Cole picked up the gold watch with a cloth.
"Unless someone wants us to think he did."
Adrian hated that every piece of evidence now contained its own argument.
Claire arrived with Sophie and Jonah several minutes later.
Adrian had wanted them upstairs.
Claire refused.
"If the people who built this system can move between floors without cameras seeing them, upstairs isn't safer."
He could not disagree.
Sophie stayed beside Jonah while Claire examined the black binders.
Her eyes widened.
"These are foundation ledgers."
Adrian opened the first one.
The records went back eleven years.
Every payment was handwritten in addition to being printed.
Some names were marked with initials.
Some with symbols.
Some with full signatures.
Claire turned pages quickly.
"This is the original tracking system."
"Your father must have kept a physical copy because he didn't trust the network."
Adrian pointed to a series of payments.
"LPS."
"Lang Protective Services."
"Victor's brother."
Claire nodded.
Another column contained payments to C.V. Consulting.
Adrian did not need help identifying those initials.
Celeste Vale.
Then he reached a page dated five years earlier.
A third name appeared repeatedly.
N. PRICE.
Everyone looked at Nolan.
The security chief did not move.
Adrian held the ledger up.
"Explain."
Nolan stared at the page.
"I can't."
"Try."
"Those aren't payments to me."
"Your name is on them."
"My name is Nolan Price."
"I noticed."
Nolan stepped closer.
"Look at the amounts."
Claire did.
"Forty-eight thousand."
"Seventy-two thousand."
"One hundred ten thousand."
Nolan shook his head.
"I've never had that kind of money."
Cole remained expressionless.
"Could be held through another account."
"It isn't."
Adrian looked at Nolan.
"How can you be sure?"
"Because five years ago I wasn't working for you."
The room went quiet.
Adrian frowned.
"You started four years ago."
"Exactly."
Claire examined the earlier page.
The N. PRICE entries began seven years ago.
They stopped four years ago.
The timing was impossible if the name referred to Nolan.
Adrian looked at the letters again.
"Another Price."
Nolan's face changed.
Not guilt.
Recognition.
"My father."
"Your father worked here?"
Nolan looked toward the shelves.
"Nathan Price was your father's private investigator."
Adrian stared at him.
He remembered the name only faintly.
A quiet man who occasionally visited the villa when Adrian was in college.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because my father asked me not to."
"Why?"
Nolan swallowed.
"He believed someone inside the Vale family was watching everyone connected to him."
Claire turned another page.
"These don't look like stolen payments."
"What do they look like?"
"Investigation expenses."
Nolan nodded.
"That's what they were."
Adrian felt the pieces rearrange.
Nathan Price had not been receiving stolen foundation funds.
He had been funded secretly to track them.
"Where is your father now?"
Nolan looked at Adrian.
"He disappeared five years ago."
The same year Adrian's father died.
Claire stopped turning pages.
"Did anyone investigate?"
"Officially, yes."
"Unofficially?"
"I did."
"And?"
Nolan looked toward the dark passage.
"His last known location was this villa."
Sophie tugged Claire's sleeve.
"Mom."
Claire bent down.
"What is it?"
Sophie pointed toward the bottom shelf.
A corner of blue paper stuck out behind the binders.
Adrian pulled the shelf forward.
Behind it was a slim metal box.
The box opened with no key.
Inside was an old digital voice recorder.
Nolan stopped breathing for a moment.
"That's his."
Adrian pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Nathan Price's voice emerged, older and tired.
"If anyone finds this, Victor is not the person in charge."
Adrian looked at Claire.
The recording continued.
"Victor thinks he is."
"Celeste thinks she can control him."
"They're both wrong."
A long pause followed.
May you like
Then Nathan said the sentence that made Adrian look toward the ceiling as if the person he feared might be standing directly above them.
"The orders are coming from inside Adrian's own office."
