Chapter 12 - THE DATA CENTER
Damien believed records were the same as truth.
Delete the files, burn the backups, and the past would disappear.
He was wrong.
Blackwood National’s primary data center sat beneath an old insurance building downtown. Damien entered with Warren Price’s stolen access card and ordered the night technicians to leave.
By the time police arrived, smoke was pouring from the server room.
Victor stayed at the lake house with Ethan. Lily refused to leave the child, but she helped Quinn by phone.
“Rosa said Warren kept paper copies,” Lily remembered. “He didn’t trust digital storage.”
“Where?” Quinn asked.
Lily pictured the mansion office. Warren had once become angry when she moved a brass model of the Chicago skyline while dusting.
“The model,” she said. “His desk had a metal skyline. Check the tallest building.”
Marco opened the model and found a tiny key.
It fit a locked cabinet behind the library fireplace.
Inside were ledgers, transfer sheets, and signed instructions from Serena, Damien, August, and Warren. There were also payment records connected to judges, inspectors, and two city officials.
The conspiracy was larger than anyone expected.
At the data center, firefighters contained the blaze. Damien escaped through a maintenance tunnel, but he left something behind: a phone with a live map.
One marker blinked at the Blackwood mansion.
Another blinked at the hospital.
A third moved toward Lake Geneva.
“He has three teams,” Quinn said. “He’s not running. He’s attacking everyone at once.”
Victor looked at Ethan asleep in Lily’s arms.
“He wants the ledgers.”
“No,” Lily said. “He knows the police have them. He wants the people who can explain them.”
Rosa was at the hospital.
August Montigue was at the mansion under guard.
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And Lily was at the lake house.
Outside, headlights appeared between the trees.
