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"That's concerning."

"It's research."

"It isn't." Theo waves a dismissive hand. "Details."

The secretary greets us as we approach the records department, and her smile looks immediately nervous. My stomach tightens, and Theo notices too — the joking disappears from his face at once. "What happened?" I ask.

The secretary swallows, then stands. "I was looking for you." People never say that before delivering good news. "What happened?" I repeat.

She wrings her hands together. "The records." My pulse sharpens. "The financial statements — the files you requested." Theo's expression changes instantly and he steps forward. "Where are they?"

The woman looks miserable. "I’m clueless. I put them with the other folders this morning." She points toward several empty shelves, and the silence that follows is heavy and uncomfortable and telling.

I step closer. "When did you last see them?"

"This morning." Her voice shakes slightly. "They were right there."

Theo folds his arms. "And now?"

"They're gone."

I close my eyes briefly, then reopen them. The shelves remain empty, the files remain missing, and the timing is impossible to ignore. We finally identify the financial trail, finally uncover the fraud, and then the evidence disappears. Convenient. Far too convenient.

Theo walks toward the shelves, his attention moving carefully across the empty space — looking, thinking, calculating — and I already know where my own thoughts are heading. Toward the consulting connections, toward the financial links, toward the name that keeps surfacing beside every suspicious record.

Marissa.

The possibility settles heavily. Not certainty, not proof — possibility. That distinction matters, especially now, and I hold onto it deliberately. Theo looks back at me and we both keep mute, because we're thinking the same thing and saying it aloud won't make it more true.

Someone knows we're getting close. Someone knows we're following the money and beginning to understand how deep this goes, and now evidence is disappearing from a secured records department in the middle of the day. The realization leaves something cold in my chest, because missing files change the nature of this entirely. Before, we were investigating sabotage. Now somebody is actively dismantling the trail behind them.

The secretary looks between us nervously. "Am I in trouble?"

Theo shakes his head immediately. "No."

I keep my attention on the empty shelf. The gap seems larger than it should — more noticeable, more significant — because it isn't just missing paperwork. It's a message. A declaration that someone is watching this investigation closely enough to move the moment we get too near the truth.

And as I stand there staring at the empty space where the records should be, one thing becomes entirely clear.

The closer we get to the answer, the more dangerous this investigation becomes — and the less time we have before whoever is behind it decides that disappearing evidence isn't enough.

19

JUNIPER

The back storage room looks like a disaster — not the dramatic kind, not the exciting kind, but the ordinary kind that develops when years of business ownership collide with a chronic refusal to throw anything away. Boxes occupy entire shelves, old invoices fill filing crates, and expired promotional materials sit in dusty stacks. Somewhere beneath all of it is apparently a floor. At least that's what Ollie claims. I'm beginning to suspect he's lying.

I drag another box onto the worktable and brush dust from the lid. The bakery is quiet — too quiet. The permit restrictions haven't disappeared and neither have the rumors, business remains painfully slow, and that leaves me with entirely too much time to organize things. A punishment nobody deserves.

I pull open the box. Receipts, old supplier records, order forms — a bakery owner's version of buried treasure, except considerably less exciting. I sort through the pile. Keep. Keep. Trash. Keep. Trash. The process continues for several minutes before something catches my attention.

A thin leather book sits wedged beneath a stack of outdated paperwork. I frown, because it doesn't belong with the rest — everything else looks familiar and this doesn't. I pull it free and dust scatters across the table. The cover is plain, no title, no label, nothing. Curiosity immediately wins.

I open it. The first page contains numbers — rows and rows of them, transactions, invoices, account references. My pulse begins to quicken as I look closer, because this isn't bakery paperwork. At least not entirely. Several names catch my attention — business names, company names, merchant names — names I've seen before, names Brock and Theo have been discussing for weeks.

I flip another page, then another and another. The dates stretch back years, not months. My stomach tightens. "What are you?" The whisper leaves my mouth before I realize I'm speaking.

I continue turning pages. Financial records, tax entries, corporate transfers, amounts and dates and account references. The handwriting changes occasionally but the records don't, and a chill crawls down my spine because the further I read, the stranger it becomes. Future tax invoice transactions appear alongside completed records — projected filings, expected returns, planned movements of money.