Chapter 4 - THE NOTEBOOK THEY FAILED TO DESTROY
The blue notebook was not in the bookcase.
Skylar searched every shelf.
Every drawer.
Every old storage box in her father’s apartment.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a pale rectangle on the bookshelf where a heavy dictionary usually stood.
The dictionary was missing too.
She called her father.
“Dad, did someone move your books?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Why?”
“The blue notebook is gone.”
Silence.
Then Elias whispered:
“Leave the apartment.”
Skylar froze.
“What?”
“Now.”
She grabbed her coat.
At that exact moment, someone knocked.
Three slow knocks.
“Miss Hastings?”
A man’s voice.
“Building maintenance.”
Skylar looked through the peephole.
She did not recognize him.
He wore a maintenance jacket, but his badge was turned backward.
She stepped away from the door.
“I didn’t request maintenance.”
“Water leak reported downstairs.”
“I’ll call the superintendent.”
The man stopped speaking.
Then she heard footsteps retreat.
Skylar waited several minutes before leaving through the stairwell.
Outside, the black sedan from the previous night was parked across the street.
She called Henrik Vogel.
Not Dominic.
Henrik answered immediately.
Twenty minutes later, she was sitting inside his Manhattan office with a security consultant and an attorney.
Henrik listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he looked genuinely disturbed.
“I think we need to involve the authorities.”
Skylar nodded.
For once, someone powerful was suggesting the obvious instead of protecting a reputation.
Henrik arranged for the suspicious visitor and surveillance concerns to be reported.
Then he called Dominic.
The billionaire arrived an hour later.
No arrogance.
No jokes.
He looked exhausted.
“I spoke to Victor.”
Skylar’s expression hardened.
“That was a mistake.”
“I’m beginning to agree.”
“What did he say?”
“He claimed your father had fabricated concerns after being denied additional consulting fees.”
Skylar stared.
“That’s a lie.”
“I know.”
She blinked.
Dominic continued.
“Victor also told me you had been dismissed from your doctoral program for academic misconduct.”
Skylar went cold.
“That is completely false.”
“I checked.”
“And?”
“Your university records show you left in good standing.”
She said nothing.
Dominic looked uncomfortable.
“I owe you an apology.”
“For which part?”
That stopped him.
Henrik almost smiled.
Dominic accepted the question.
“For humiliating you at dinner. For assuming your job defined your intelligence. And for believing Victor’s explanation before examining the evidence.”
Skylar studied him.
“An apology doesn’t solve the problem.”
“No.”
He leaned forward.
“But I may have something useful.”
He placed a company file on the table.
Aurelian Heritage had purchased the disputed tablet eighteen months earlier.
The transaction included a certificate carrying Dr. Elias Hastings’s signature.
Skylar examined it.
Then her expression changed.
“That isn’t his signature.”
Dominic frowned.
“It matches his earlier reports.”
“The handwriting is close.”
She pointed toward the date.
“But my father was already in rehabilitation when this document was supposedly signed.”
Henrik leaned closer.
“That suggests the certificate was fabricated.”
Dominic’s phone rang.
Victor.
He ignored it.
Then Skylar noticed something else.
A small reference code appeared at the bottom of the certificate.
EH-BN-17.
Her father’s initials.
Blue Notebook.
Page 17.
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Someone had used information from the missing notebook to produce the document.
And that meant Victor’s people had obtained the notebook long before Skylar went looking for it.
