Chapter 6 - The Engineer Who Ran
Marcus Hale opened his apartment door and tried to close it again when he saw Nathan.
Rebecca stopped the door with her shoe.
“Mr. Hale, we’re not police.”
“That makes this worse.”
Nathan stared.
“Why?”
“Because police have rules.”
“So do lawyers.”
Marcus looked at Rebecca.
“Not the ones I met.”
His apartment was small and nearly empty.
He had aged badly in fourteen months.
Nathan placed Olivia’s photograph on the table.
“You knew her.”
Marcus looked away.
“She asked questions.”
“What questions?”
“About old service corridors. Cameras. Electrical rooms.”
“What was behind Locker 417?”
Marcus’s face tightened.
Nathan leaned forward.
“I know Aldercrest paid you a quarter million dollars.”
“That was severance.”
“For an engineer?”
Marcus said nothing.
Rebecca spoke.
“If it was legitimate severance, you have nothing to worry about.”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“Lady, everybody who has something to worry about says that.”
Nathan forced himself to stay calm.
“Did Charles pay you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Marcus finally looked at him.
“To leave.”
“Why?”
“Because I saw something.”
Nathan’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“The night your ex-wife disappeared.”
Silence.
Marcus wiped his palms on his jeans.
“She came to the club after midnight.”
“Why?”
“She called me.”
“You had her number?”
“She’d been asking about the old Bennett locker. She thought someone was accessing it through the service corridor.”
“Charles?”
“She thought so.”
“What did you do?”
“I let her in through the maintenance entrance.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
Olivia had come to Aldercrest the night she vanished.
“What happened?”
“She went to the electrical room.”
“Why?”
Marcus looked at Rebecca.
“Because old camera backups were stored there.”
Sarah, who had joined them by video call, whispered, “The pre-cloud system.”
Marcus nodded.
“The club switched systems three years ago, but the old server still mirrored certain cameras because nobody wanted to rewire the founder’s wing.”
Nathan’s pulse quickened.
“The old server was mounted behind 417.”
“Yes.”
“What did Olivia find?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I left her alone.”
“Why?”
“Because she asked me to.”
Nathan stood.
“Everyone left her alone when she needed somebody.”
Marcus flinched.
Rebecca put a hand on Nathan’s arm.
He sat again.
“What happened next?”
Marcus’s voice dropped.
“Charles arrived.”
Nathan stared.
“Alone?”
“No.”
“Veronica?”
Marcus nodded.
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“Were they together romantically?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did you see?”
“They argued with Olivia in the passage.”
“About what?”
“The land sale.”
“Did you hear details?”
“Olivia said she had copied enough to send them both to prison.”
Nathan swallowed.
“And then?”
“I went back toward them because voices got louder.”
Marcus’s breathing became uneven.
“Charles grabbed Olivia.”
Nathan’s hands curled.
“Veronica told him to stop.”
“Then?”
“Olivia pulled away.”
Marcus stared at the floor.
“She ran toward the old lower stairwell.”
Nathan almost whispered, “And?”
“Charles followed.”
Marcus’s eyes filled.
“I heard something fall.”
Nathan could not move.
“What fell?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know.”
“I didn’t see.”
Nathan stood again.
“Where was Olivia?”
“When I reached the stairwell, she was gone.”
“Gone?”
“The lower service door was open.”
“Did you search?”
“Charles stopped me.”
Nathan’s voice broke.
“Why?”
“He said Olivia had run outside.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
“Then why did you take the money?”
Marcus looked destroyed.
“Because I had a wife with cancer and eighty thousand dollars in medical debt.”
Nathan stared.
Marcus continued.
“Charles offered me two hundred fifty thousand and threatened to accuse me of stealing.”
“So you left.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see Olivia again?”
“No.”
Nathan turned away.
Rebecca asked, “What did Veronica do?”
“She was crying.”
“Did she leave with Charles?”
“No. Charles told her to move Olivia’s car.”
Nathan looked back.
“To White Plains station.”
Marcus nodded.
That was where the car had been found.
The disappearance had been staged.
Nathan’s voice became quiet.
“What is in the electrical room now?”
Marcus looked surprised.
“You haven’t opened it?”
“No.”
Marcus reached into a kitchen drawer.
He removed a key.
“I kept one thing.”
Nathan stared.
“Why?”
“Because some part of me knew I’d eventually have to stop being a coward.”
Back at Aldercrest, Rebecca called Detective Harper and requested police presence before opening the room.
Charles objected through counsel.
The officers came anyway after Rebecca shared Marcus’s recorded statement.
The electrical-room door opened.
Inside were dead servers.
Old wiring.
Dust.
And a concrete stairwell descending another level.
Nathan stared.
“I didn’t know Aldercrest had a lower basement.”
Sarah whispered, “Almost nobody does.”
The stairs ended at a steel door.
Fresh padlock.
Harper photographed it.
“What’s behind here?”
Marcus, on video, answered.
“Old pool-pump tunnels.”
The lock was cut.
Cold damp air drifted out.
Nathan stepped forward.
Harper stopped him.
“Police first.”
They entered.
Fifty feet into the tunnel, an officer called out.
“Detective.”
Nathan heard metal scraping.
A storage cabinet had been hidden behind plastic sheeting.
Inside were Olivia’s laptop bag.
Her coat.
And one shoe.
Nathan gripped the wall.
Sarah began crying.
Rebecca looked toward Harper.
“This is a crime scene.”
Then another officer shouted from farther down.
They had found an old emergency door leading to a disused service driveway.
Tire tracks could not survive fourteen months.
But the camera above the door had.
Its local memory unit was still intact.
Harper removed it.
One file remained.
The night Olivia vanished.
At 1:52 a.m., a black maintenance vehicle backed toward the tunnel.
Charles stood beside it.
Veronica opened the rear door.
And between them, wrapped in a large gray club blanket, they carried something heavy out of Aldercrest.
Nathan stared at the screen.
He did not need to see a face.
He knew.
May you like
Olivia had not walked away from Ethan.
Someone had carried her out.
