Chapter 9 - The Nine Dates
At 8:45 the next morning, Nathan entered the Asterion boardroom despite his suspension.
Security had been instructed not to admit him.
Daniel overrode the door.
Rebecca sat at the head of the table.
Gavin sat beside her.
Nathan looked at them together and finally saw what had always been there.
The shared glances.
The effortless timing.
The practiced disagreement.
“You’re not authorized to attend,” Rebecca said.
“I’m a director and thirty-eight-percent shareholder.”
“You’re suspended from executive functions.”
“Not from listening while my wife and her former husband steal my company.”
Several board members turned toward Gavin.
Rebecca’s face tightened.
Nathan dropped Nevada corporate records onto the table.
“Rebecca Cross and Gavin Cross. Married eleven years ago. No dissolution of their jointly controlled holding company, Cross Meridian Holdings. Cross Meridian owns Northlight Research.”
The chairman read silently.
Gavin said, “Old paperwork.”
Nathan looked at him.
“Old paperwork that received $18.6 million from Asterion.”
Rebecca spoke calmly.
“Those allegations are under investigation.”
“By people you selected.”
“We disclosed them.”
“After Elena found them three years ago.”
That caused movement around the table.
Nathan continued.
“You also concealed Rebecca’s conflict of interest during every Northlight contract approval.”
Gavin leaned back.
“Do you have evidence those contracts were fraudulent?”
“Not yet.”
Rebecca smiled.
“Then perhaps stop performing.”
Nathan had expected that.
He placed copies of Sophie’s notebook pages down.
Rebecca’s smile vanished.
“Nine dates,” Nathan said. “Each corresponds to a transfer bearing Elena’s authorization. Each is also a timestamp from telescope operations she personally conducted at other facilities.”
He distributed logs.
“On March 4 she was in Arizona. On March 22 she was in Chile remotely operating through a secure terminal in Tucson. On April 16 she was giving a live lecture at Caltech. Yet her credentials supposedly initiated transfers from Asterion headquarters.”
A board member asked, “Are the telescope logs authenticated?”
“They are independently archived by partner institutions.”
Gavin glanced at Rebecca.
Nathan saw fear.
The chairman suspended the acting-CEO vote pending outside review.
It was Nathan’s first victory.
Rebecca followed him into the corridor.
“You think this saves you?”
“No.”
“It destroys Elena too.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t understand what she did.”
“I understand you lied.”
Rebecca stepped closer.
“She didn’t disappear because she feared me.”
Nathan said nothing.
“She disappeared because she discovered what you had done.”
Nathan felt the old trap: provoke, destabilize, confuse.
“What did I do?”
Rebecca smiled.
“Ask Elena.”
Nathan drove directly to Silver Creek.
He found the motel from Keene’s key card.
The manager recognized Elena’s photograph.
“She stayed here.”
“When?”
“Several times.”
“Recently?”
The manager nodded.
“Last month.”
Nathan’s hands began shaking.
“Was she alone?”
“Usually.”
“Usually?”
The manager looked uncomfortable.
“A man came twice.”
“Describe him.”
“Tall. Gray coat. Maybe fifty.”
Gavin was fifty-one.
Nathan showed a photograph.
The manager shook his head.
“No.”
Daniel?
No.
Jonah?
Too old.
The manager added, “He drove a government-looking sedan.”
Nathan thought of investigators.
Room 12 had been cleaned weeks earlier, but the manager allowed Nathan inside.
Nothing remained except a small scratch beneath the desk.
A carved eight-point star.
Nathan touched it.
His phone rang.
Mara.
“We figured out the nine dates.”
“I already matched them to telescope logs.”
“Not that.”
Her voice was urgent.
“Sophie noticed something.”
“What?”
“The dates form another pattern.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Tell me.”
“When entered into the planetarium by month and day, they correspond to star-catalog numbers.”
“What do the stars spell?”
“They don’t spell anything.”
A pause.
“They point somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Hart Ridge.”
“I’ve already been there.”
“Not the building.”
Nathan waited.
Mara lowered her voice.
“The land beneath it.”
Nathan drove back to Hart Ridge.
Jonah met him.
Together they descended below the archive level into a maintenance corridor.
At the end stood an old steel door.
Jonah frowned.
“I haven’t opened this in fifteen years.”
The astronomy code gave them the lock combination.
Inside was a server room.
Modern.
Powered.
Active.
Rows of encrypted storage drives hummed beneath blue indicator lights.
Nathan stared.
“This place is supposed to be decommissioned.”
Jonah pointed toward a network rack.
“Someone is still using it.”
Nathan found the access log.
Northlight Research.
Thousands of files.
Contracts.
Surveillance feeds.
Emails.
Recordings.
Then he saw a folder labeled S.H.
Sophie Hale.
He opened it.
Photographs appeared.
Sophie at school.
Sophie sleeping.
Sophie at the playground.
Sophie standing beside Nathan.
Three years of surveillance.
Nathan could barely breathe.
Then another file opened automatically.
Live video.
Rebecca was inside Nathan’s house.
May you like
Standing in Sophie’s bedroom.
And she was holding the astronomy notebook.
