2026-10-31 17:24:23
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 154: The Missing Attachment
Lucas received the first response from Legal at 9:06 the following morning.The handover declaration had been filed in the personnel archive, but its supporting inventory wasn't attached to the scanned copy. The original submission had been recorded as three pages: one signed declaration followed by a two-page inventory.The archive register marked the file complete when it was received four months earlier. No amendment or removal had been recorded.Lucas forwarded the message to Helen.“They're saying the file arrived complete,” she said.“That's what the register shows.”“So the inventory existed.”“Someone received it, counted it and registered it. We need to establish what happened afterward.”Helen placed her notebook on the desk. “Can they identify the receiving clerk?”Lucas opened the archive history. The declaration had been submitted by the former restricted correspondence officer. A records clerk had received it, checked the page count against the submission slip and transf
CHAPTER 153: The Desk Behind the Account
The investigator called at 8:17 the following morning.Lucas was already in the office. He had spent most of the night reviewing the four documents recovered from the migration backup. The coffee beside his laptop had gone cold, and his eyes ached from staring at the same lines until the words began to blur.Helen stood near the window, reading a message on her phone.“Tell me you found something useful,” Lucas said as he answered.“We found the account assignment history,” the investigator replied. “ES-RC-04 wasn't registered to an individual employee.”Lucas glanced at Helen.“Who was it registered to?”“Executive Coordination's restricted correspondence desk. It was a shared account. Three positions had permission to use it during the relevant period.”“Names?”“I've sent the access schedule to Legal. Two positions were held by people who have since left the company. The third belonged to the office of the Deputy Director of Executive Coordination.”Helen lowered her phone.“Does t
CHAPTER 152: The Copy Before the Transfer
By 10:17 a.m., the forensic technician had finished creating the image of the external drive. He ran the verification check twice, comparing the hash values before confirming that the working copy matched the original.Lucas had spent most of the wait reviewing the transfer receipt with Legal. The documents were relevant, but their age, authorship and relationship to the original dispatch still needed to be established. Nobody wanted to build an accusation around a piece of paper whose history they couldn't prove.Helen returned from the corridor carrying two cups of coffee. She set one beside Lucas and pulled a chair toward the technician's workstation.“Any progress?”“Imaging is complete. I'm working from the verified copy now.” The technician adjusted his glasses and opened the recovered directory. “The backup contains several years of restricted correspondence. Some folders are indexed by reference number, others by migration batch. There are duplicates and incomplete scans.”“Se
CHAPTER 151: What Was Left Behind
By 8:15 the following morning, the basement document services room had been sealed off, with two Security officers stationed outside. The retired terminal stood where it had been left, its disconnected cables hanging behind the desk. The slim document case remained on the floor beside it, exactly where the employee had abandoned it the previous evening.Lucas arrived with Helen just before the forensic team. He'd slept badly, waking several times with the same images running through his head: the recovered instruction on the terminal screen, the temporary access card caught between someone's fingers, and the employee walking out of the basement without the case.The building had already settled into its morning routine. A trolley rattled along the corridor, its loose wheel knocking against the floor tiles. Somewhere upstairs, a receptionist was arguing with a delivery driver. Lucas found the ordinary noise irritating. A succession document had vanished from a restricted archive, and p
CHAPTER 150: The Instruction That Survived
Lucas read the sentence again, his eyes moving slowly across the screen.RETAIN OUTSIDE PRIMARY ARCHIVE UNTIL FURTHER DIRECTION.The wording was plain, almost careless. It appeared beneath the old succession reference, with no signature, no department head's approval and no indication of who had issued the instruction. Years of missing paperwork had led them here, and the document still refused to give them the one thing they needed most: a name.Helen leaned over his shoulder. “That's the wording we've been looking for?”“It's consistent with the instruction described in the missing transfer records. We need to establish whether we're looking at the complete document or an extract.”The forensic technician enlarged the scanned pages. Six in total. The last had been damaged, a deep crease running through the lower section and cutting across several lines of handwriting.“I can improve the readability of the working copy,” he explained. “The original image won't be altered. I'll save a
CHAPTER 149: The Card That Never Came Back
Lucas caught Helen's wrist before she could tap the call button.“Give Security another minute. I want the transaction history first.”She pulled her hand free, frustration showing in the crease between her eyebrows. “The card is still active. Whoever has it can keep walking into restricted areas while we sit here waiting for a report.”“I know.” Lucas glanced at the credential register. “But if we freeze it before the export is complete, we may lose the live status and details of any pending transaction. Once they have the full record, they can disable it.”The register lay open between them. The temporary card had been collected from the administrative head's office at 4:08 p.m. by the Executive Secretariat operations coordinator. The return column was blank. There was no named holder, only a department entry and the coordinator's collection record.That coordinator's account had also submitted the route amendment that redirected the disputed ER/77-D package toward Executive Secreta
You may also like
Secretly The Quadrillionaire's Heir
Viki West125.6K viewsBack From Prison!
KMyay182.0K viewsHidden Billionaire Son-in-law
Deliaha Shine127.8K viewsReturn Of The Dragon Lord
Snowwriter 141.4K viewsThe invincible Tony Clark
Davzee50 viewsThe Master They Underestimated
Jessie S.51 viewsStorm of Shadows
Faith133 viewsThe Hidden Mage of New York
Odessa362 views