Part 2
Chapter 2
At 7:18, Daniel entered the nearly empty office. The Christmas decorations from the party still hung along the reception area, cheerful against the gray morning light. He went straight to his workstation and opened the project archive Mark had mentioned. One folder was missing—the Benton account files he had worked on for months. Daniel checked again, then searched the backup system. The access history showed something that made his stomach tighten.
Someone had accessed the folder at 11:47 p.m. the previous night. Daniel had been home by then, standing beside his daughter’s Christmas tree. The login belonged to his employee account. But he had never made that login. Someone had used his credentials while he was asleep.
Daniel immediately printed the access record. Before he could take another breath, Mark appeared behind him. “You’re early,” he said, staring at the papers in Daniel’s hand. His expression changed for only a second, but Daniel saw it. “I came to ask about the missing files,” Daniel replied.
Mark smiled without warmth. “Missing files? Daniel, you were the last person assigned to them.” Daniel looked directly at him. “I was also at home when my account accessed them.” Mark’s smile disappeared.
Then the elevator doors opened. Victoria Hayes stepped into the office with two members of Northstar’s legal team behind her. She had not come to wish anyone a happy Christmas. She walked straight toward Daniel’s desk and held out her hand. “Give me the access record,” she said.
Daniel handed it over. Victoria read it once, then again. Her face became completely still. “This timestamp,” she said quietly. “It was after I left your house.” Daniel nodded. Mark stepped forward, but Victoria raised one hand.
“No explanations yet.” She turned toward legal counsel. “Freeze every access credential connected to the Benton account. Preserve the server logs, security footage, and email records.” Mark went pale. Daniel realized then that Victoria had not come to punish him. She had come because she had already started looking for the truth.
Victoria looked at Daniel. “You told me last night not to ask questions unless I knew what I would do with the answers.” She placed the access record on his desk. “I know now.” Daniel swallowed hard. For the first time in months, someone at Northstar was finally listening.
And then Victoria added one sentence that made Daniel look up sharply. “There is one more person whose name appears in the audit.”
She turned the paper toward him.
It was not Mark Reynolds.
It was someone Daniel had never expected.
PART 3: Daniel stared at the paper in Victoria’s hand. The name beneath the access record belonged to someone he recognized immediately: Andrew Cole, Northstar’s Vice President of Operations. Andrew had been with the company for almost fifteen years and was one of the executives who had personally approved the Benton account expansion. Daniel looked at Victoria, waiting for her to say it was some kind of mistake.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Daniel said quietly. “Andrew doesn’t even work directly with my team.” Victoria nodded. “Exactly.” She placed the document on the desk and pointed to the timestamp. Andrew’s credentials had accessed the same folder only minutes before Daniel’s account was used.
Mark suddenly stepped forward. “Victoria, this is getting ridiculous. Andrew has executive access to almost everything.” Victoria turned toward him. “Then you should have no problem explaining why the Benton files were copied to an external server after midnight.” Mark stopped speaking.
Daniel felt his stomach tighten. The files were not ordinary documents; they contained pricing models, client contracts, and internal projections that could seriously damage Northstar if they reached a competitor. Victoria asked legal counsel to pull every transfer record connected to the account. As the information appeared on the screen, another detail surfaced—three files had been deleted from the original archive.
Daniel recognized their names immediately.
“They were the files I completed last Friday,” he said. “Mark told me they needed another review.” Victoria looked at him. “Did you ever send those files to Andrew?” Daniel shook his head. “No. I never even spoke to him about them.” Mark interrupted, saying Daniel was becoming confused, but Victoria stopped him again.
“Enough, Mark.” Her voice was calm, but the room went silent. She turned to Daniel and asked him to describe exactly what happened on Friday. He explained how Mark had ordered him to revise the projections, then demanded that Daniel leave the office after submitting the final version. Daniel remembered one strange thing now: Mark had insisted that he leave his workstation unlocked while he went to get coffee.
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Victoria listened without interrupting. Then she asked security to review the office cameras from that afternoon. Within minutes, the footage appeared on the conference-room screen. Daniel watched himself walk away from his desk. Less than two minutes later, Mark appeared beside his workstation.
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