Chapter 4 - The Missing Night
Nathan drove to Hart Ridge alone.
He told Sophie he was going to meet an investigator and left her with Maria, the housekeeper who had known her since infancy.
Nathan hated lying to Sophie.
But after the photograph, he no longer trusted his own memory.
Snow still clung to the shaded mountainsides.
Hart Ridge Observatory stood beyond a locked service road, its silver dome visible through pine trees.
Nathan parked outside the gate.
A man stepped from behind the guardhouse.
Late sixties.
Gray beard.
Heavy coat.
He held a silver half-star necklace.
Nathan stopped.
“You were in the window.”
The man nodded.
“Jonah Price.”
Nathan recognized the name.
Jonah had been Asterion’s telescope systems engineer before retiring after Elena’s disappearance.
“You sent the photograph?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Jonah unlocked the gate.
Inside the observatory everything smelled of cold metal and dust.
Nathan followed him upstairs.
“You’ve been here?”
“Every Tuesday for three years.”
“Why?”
“Because Elena asked me to.”
Nathan’s pulse jumped.
“When?”
“The night she disappeared.”
“Is she alive?”
Jonah stared through the dark telescope chamber.
“I don’t know.”
Nathan grabbed his coat.
“You stand in front of a telescope holding her necklace and tell me you don’t know?”
Jonah did not resist.
“She was alive the last time I saw her.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Nathan released him.
Jonah opened his hand.
The pendant matched Sophie’s perfectly.
“Elena broke it in half herself.”
“Why?”
“She said one half would prove I had her trust.”
“To Sophie?”
“To whoever Sophie trusted enough to bring here.”
Nathan looked away.
“And the photograph?”
Jonah sighed.
“You really don’t remember?”
“No.”
“You arrived shortly before midnight.”
“With Rebecca?”
“No. Elena brought you.”
Nathan’s head snapped around.
Jonah continued.
“You were sick. Barely conscious.”
Nathan remembered waking in his car the following morning at a rest area thirty miles south.
Rebecca had found him.
She told him he had been drinking after a fight with Elena.
Nathan had believed her because his memory was fragmented and his blood test later showed alcohol.
“I wasn’t drinking that night.”
“No,” Jonah said.
“Elena thought someone drugged you.”
Nathan gripped the edge of a desk.
“Rebecca?”
“She suspected Rebecca and Gavin.”
“Why Gavin?”
Jonah took out a brass key.
“Because six months before Elena vanished, she found $18.6 million missing.”
Nathan stared.
“From where?”
“Asterion’s research foundation.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Elena thought so too.”
Jonah gave him the key.
“She traced payments to Northlight Research.”
Nathan remembered the name from the board meeting.
“Northlight didn’t lease this observatory until last year.”
Jonah shook his head.
“It existed before that.”
“What is it?”
“A shell.”
“Owned by whom?”
Jonah hesitated.
Then said, “Rebecca Cross.”
Nathan frowned.
“Rebecca’s last name was Mercer before we married.”
Jonah watched him.
“Before Mercer.”
Nathan understood.
Rebecca had once been married.
“To Gavin?”
Jonah nodded.
Nathan sat down.
Rebecca had told him she had never married.
Gavin had served as Asterion CFO for nine years.
Rebecca joined as outside counsel seven years ago.
They had behaved like colleagues.
Sometimes adversarial colleagues.
It had all been theater.
Jonah walked to an old storage cabinet.
“Elena discovered they never legally dissolved a Nevada holding company from their marriage. That company controlled Northlight.”
“Why steal from Asterion?”
“To create debt.”
Nathan looked at him.
Jonah nodded.
“Drive the company into dependence. Force a sale. Northstar buys Asterion cheaply, Northlight debt disappears, Rebecca and Gavin collect through side agreements.”
Nathan thought of Thursday’s merger.
“They’re finishing it.”
“Yes.”
Nathan held up the brass key.
“What does this open?”
Jonah pointed downstairs.
“Elena’s locker.”
They descended into the archive level.
The key opened a steel cabinet.
Inside were three folders.
A portable drive.
A voice recorder.
And an envelope addressed to Nathan.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Nathan,
If you are reading this, I failed to get Sophie away safely.
Whatever Rebecca tells you, do not sign anything involving my shares.
Do not let her adopt Sophie.
Do not trust Gavin.
And please remember this:
You did not choose to come to Hart Ridge that night.
I brought you because I thought you had been poisoned.
Nathan stopped reading.
His throat closed.
Below the letter was another line.
I made one terrible mistake.
I told Rebecca where I hid the original evidence.
Nathan looked inside the cabinet.
The portable drive was labeled COPY.
“Where are the originals?” he asked.
Jonah’s expression darkened.
“Elena moved them before sunrise.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know.”
Nathan’s phone buzzed.
A message from Maria.
COME HOME NOW.
Then another.
May you like
REBECCA IS HERE WITH POLICE AND A COURT ORDER.
Nathan ran.
