Chapter 4 - THE TWELVE-DIGIT SECRET
I had chosen the safe combination myself.
Twelve digits.
Four groups of three.
Each group represented a date connected to my family.
My father's birthday.
My mother's death.
The day my brother entered recovery.
And the day I decided to leave the criminal side of my father's empire behind.
No one knew all four dates.
At least, that was what I believed.
Daniel reviewed the security system.
He discovered that someone had accessed archived camera recordings from my study hallway.
The login belonged to a temporary administrator account created six weeks earlier.
The account had been approved by my personal technology consultant.
A man named Elliot Vance.
Elliot had been hired on Vivien's recommendation.
I summoned Elliot to my office.
He arrived smiling.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
I gestured toward the chair.
“Sit.”
He sat.
I placed a printout on the desk.
“Explain this.”
He glanced at the administrator account.
His smile faded.
“Routine maintenance.”
“Who authorized it?”
“Miss Rossi.”
I leaned back.
“Why?”
“She said you wanted the security system updated before the wedding.”
I stared at him.
“Did you access my private recordings?”
Elliot hesitated.
“Only for testing.”
“Did you copy them?”
“No.”
I looked at Daniel.
Daniel placed another document on the desk.
It showed a large data transfer from Elliot's laptop to an external storage device.
Elliot went pale.
I spoke quietly.
“Try again.”
Under questioning by my attorneys and the independent investigators I'd hired, Elliot admitted that Vivien had requested copies of footage showing me entering the safe combination.
He claimed he hadn't known why.
I didn't believe him.
But I now understood how she had opened the safe.
She had watched me.
Not once.
Not twice.
Repeatedly.
Until she could reconstruct the twelve digits.
That evening, I stood alone in my study.
The Rothko hung in its usual place.
The safe was locked.
But it no longer felt secure.
I thought about Emma.
May you like
A three-year-old girl had noticed what my entire security system had missed.
And she had been frightened enough to whisper.
