Chapter 3 - THE BOOK ON THE THIRD SHELF
The book was called The Secret Garden.
Jasmine remembered it because her father used to read it badly.
He skipped pages.
Invented voices.
Once accidentally called Mary “Martha” for an entire chapter.
She had kept it because it was one of the few things that made his abandonment feel less complete.
Now abandonment itself had been a lie.
Derek did not enter her apartment this time.
Jasmine asked Marcus to wait downstairs.
Naomi came upstairs with her.
Her choice.
They found the book on the third shelf.
Nothing obvious.
Then Jasmine opened the back cover.
The cardboard felt thicker than the front.
Naomi photographed everything before Jasmine carefully separated an already-loose section.
Inside:
A microSD card.
A brass key.
And a folded note.
For Jazzy.
Jasmine’s knees weakened.
Nobody had called her Jazzy since she was eight.
She unfolded the paper.
If your mother gives you this, it means I could not.
Do not blame her for being afraid.
That sentence mattered.
Then:
Numbers only matter if you know who named the columns.
She read it twice.
Naomi frowned.
“Accountant?”
“Apparently.”
Then the final line:
Never trust the man who explains a missing number before you ask where it went.
No name.
The microSD required forensic imaging.
No plugging it casually into laptops.
Naomi arranged an independent digital examiner.
Derek was informed but did not control the process.
Good.
The first files opened that evening.
Scanned invoices.
Payroll reports.
Vendor lists.
Aster Holdings.
Millions moved through consulting and logistics companies.
Most twenty years old.
Then one folder:
M.D.
Naomi looked at Jasmine.
“Malcolm Drake?”
“Maybe.”
Inside:
Emails.
Thomas Cole to Victor Drake.
Never sent?
Drafts.
Victor,
I believe Malcolm is using Aster to route vendor overpayments into private accounts.
Jasmine’s stomach tightened.
Derek read a copy through his counsel later.
He called.
“Can I come over?”
“No.”
Silence.
Then:
“Can I call?”
“You’re already calling.”
A faint laugh.
Good.
“What did you find?”
She told him.
Derek was quiet.
Then:
“My uncle raised me after my father spent more time expanding the company than being a father.”
There it was.
Malcolm was not merely executive.
He was emotional architecture.
“Do you believe the files?”
“I believe evidence deserves examination.”
Right answer.
Then forensic analyst opened another document.
Photograph.
Thomas meeting Victor Drake at a diner.
Date:
Three days before the warehouse fire.
So Thomas had reached Derek’s father.
The draft email was not the end.
There had been a meeting.
Then audio file.
Thomas’s voice.
“I told Victor.”
Another male voice:
“What did he say?”
“Give him forty-eight hours.”
“Do you trust him?”
“No.”
“Then why tell him?”
“Because if Malcolm is stealing from Drake, Victor has the power to stop it.”
Jasmine listened.
Then the second man spoke again.
She did not recognize him.
Derek did.
Immediately.
“Marcus’s father.”
Jasmine stared.
“Your driver’s father?”
“No.”
Derek’s face hardened.
“Marcus Vale.”
Former head of Drake security.
Dead ten years.
Then Thomas said:
“If something happens to me, Malcolm did not act alone.”
Pause.
“There’s someone on the nineteenth floor.”
Derek went still.
“What was on the nineteenth floor twenty years ago?”
He already knew.
Drake Family Office.
Private trusts.
Executive accounts.
May you like
And the person running it at that time was not Malcolm.
It was Derek’s mother.
