Chapter 5 - My Password
My administrator credentials required a rotating hardware key that never left my office safe.
At least, it wasn't supposed to.
I drove straight to Cross Technologies and found the safe locked.
The hardware key was inside.
So was the backup.
"This is cloned authentication," she said.
"Can that happen?"
"Not without someone having physical access to the token long enough to copy its certificate."
Executives. Assistants. Contractors.
Vanessa.
Priya pulled up another log.
"There's more. Your credentials were used to access archived equity documents six times in the last three months."
"Which documents?"
BENNETT RIDGE HOLDINGS.
The same company from the old seed agreement.
My phone buzzed.
Grace.
I answered immediately.
"How are you?"
"They dressed the burn. I'm okay. Your mother is stable. But Adrienne... Marcus just called me from home."
Her voice shook.
"Someone broke into our apartment."
I stood.
"Is he safe?"
"He's with our neighbor. Nothing expensive is missing."
"Then what is?"
Grace began to cry.
"Caleb's things. A box I kept in the closet. His old notebooks. His watch. A little metal case he told me never to open unless someone came asking about Bennett Ridge."
"Grace, did anyone know about that case?"
"Only Caleb and me."
A pause.
"And your mother. I told Eleanor about it two weeks ago."
The timeline locked into place.
Eleanor had discovered the old equity theft.
She had contacted Grace.
Vanessa somehow learned about it.
Then the case disappeared.
"What was inside?" I asked.
Grace inhaled shakily.
"I don't know. But Caleb once told me it contained the reason a powerful man would someday wish he'd never met him."
On Priya's screen, another alert appeared.
An archived video file had just been opened remotely.
May you like
The filename was one I had never seen.
CALEB_BENNETT_FINAL_STATEMENT.mov
