tell
him. “Penthouse suite.”
“Nothing but the
best,” Vaughn drawls.
We take the stairs,
climbing fast. I shiver, remembering the last time I was in a
stairwell like this, when someone pushed me hard enough to send me
tumbling. Was it Brent? I wonder. And if it was, what else would he
do to steal the company he’s fixated on as his rightful
inheritance. He’s willing to dismantle the whole thing to keep it
from anyone else. Just how twisted is he?
Vaughn checks the
penthouse hallway. All clear. We hurry to the front door, and I pass
him the key. It wasn’t hard to get a copy. It belongs to the
company, after all. I just had to call the management, pretending to
be Brent’s secretary. I said we needed spares for redecorating, and
had them message one over to the office.
Now, my heart catches
as Vaughn swipes the card and the door clicks open. I exhale with
relief.
“Careful,” he warns
me, stepping inside. He flips the lights on, and looks around. “We
still have the alarms.”
A tell-tale beeping
comes from the box on the wall. I cross over, and tap in the code I
scribbled down earlier. I pulled the same routine on the security
company, and had them send over the info.
The beeping stops.
“We’re in!”
Vaughn sees my grin and
chuckles. “You little criminal.”
“What? I’m not
breaking any laws,” I point out. “This was part of my
inheritance. It’s all perfectly legal.”
“Tell that to Brent.”
Vaughn looks around. “Where do you want to start?”
“The office, I guess.
That’s where he’d be keeping all the business info.”
“Then let’s get
started.”
We find the office down
the hall. I flip on the lights, revealing a sleek room filled with
porny art and hi-tech computers. Vaughn tries tapping at the
keyboard, but he shakes his head. “Password protected.”
“Try ‘Brent is the
greatest’,” I joke, rifling through a cabinet. Vaughn tries out a
few combinations, but has no luck.
“We don’t want to
risk it,” he sighs. “He might have a tracker installed, to tell
him if someone tries to log in.”
We look through every
drawer and cupboard in turn. “I think I’ve found something.” I
call him over. A stash of papers in a drawer, a rough draft of some
kind of contract with notes in the margins.
“It’s with
Excaliber Finance!” I read the dense print. “Something about
establishing a partnership...”
“He’s sold you out,
just like we thought,” Vaughn says grimly. “He’s agreed to
support the takeover, in exchange for a co-head position of the new
company.”
It confirms all my
worst suspicions, but it still hurts. It’s one thing for me to have
considered walking away when I first got news of my inheritance, but
Brent’s spent years watching his father build the company. He knows
everything it means, and still, he’s happy to tear it all down.
“What about
Excaliber?” I ask. “Does it have any more information about who
that guy is?”
“There’s a
signature, right here,” Vaughn flips to the last page. “Martin
Ridley. Fuck.”
“What?” I see his
expression change. Shock, and realization.
“It’s their old
partner.” Vaughn looks at me, clenching the contract. “Back when
my father and Ashcroft started the company, they brought on a third
guy, the money. He disappeared, went to jail on tax charges. I always
figured Ashcroft set him up too, to get him out of the picture.”
“And now he’s back,
plotting with Brent.” I frown, trying to make sense of it. “And
he’s the guy he’s been meeting?”
Vaughn taps his phone,
bringing up an image search and typing in the name Martin Ridley.
“Shit,” he says, showing me the results. Martin Ridley, the guy
Brent and Carter have been sneaking around with. “I should have
checked this earlier. It’s him.”
“But what does it
mean?” I ask him, confused. “This guy has been planning to take
back the company all this time?”
“Seems so,” Vaughn
answers, putting