Chapter 8 - The Password No One Should Have Known
I knew the security office better than Dante realized. For months I had collected the guards' uniforms, emptied pockets before washing, and returned radios that someone forgot to remove. People spoke freely in front of the laundry staff because they did not imagine we were listening.
One guard, Vincent Hale, had always demanded his shirts be washed separately. He complained about the scent of detergent and insisted that no one touch the cuffs. When I checked the logs, I found his laundry requests coincided with unexplained overnight entries to the server room.
Dante wanted to question him immediately. I suggested we preserve the access records first. A forensic technician found that someone had cloned a badge assigned to Dante, then used it from a terminal reserved for Hale.
We did not get the chance to arrest him at the estate. Hale fled during a scheduled fire drill. The alarms sounded, doors opened, and he disappeared into the delivery yard. But he left behind a notebook of passwords written in tiny block letters.
One entry read MARCH 17 — MARCO. That was the date of the ambush. Another read SCHOOL — THURSDAY.
I ran upstairs to find Mia and Toby. Mia was in the library drawing a boat. Toby had fallen asleep with his head against her shoulder. I stayed there until the new security team arrived, afraid that even a minute of absence would become a mistake I could never repair.
Later Dante found me sitting on the carpet outside their door. He lowered himself beside me without a word.
“I can't promise nothing bad will happen,” he said eventually.
“Then don't.”
“I can promise I won't hide the danger from you.”
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That was a promise I could measure. I told him I would hold him to it.
At dawn the police found Hale's abandoned car near a ferry terminal. On the passenger seat lay a photograph of Marco, his face crossed out in red ink. On the back was written: THE CHILDREN ARE NEXT.
