Cracking the Drive
Chapter 05 - Cracking the Drive
Detective Muñoz called at six forty on Thursday morning.
Sophia was already awake, standing barefoot in the studio kitchen while coffee dripped into a chipped green mug. Rain pressed softly against the windows, turning the fire escape black.
"We opened it," Muñoz said.
Sophia reached for the counter.
"What's on it?"
"Enough that you should come in. Bring an attorney if you have one."
"Am I in trouble?"
"Not based on what I've seen."
"That's not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be. Nine o'clock."
The call ended.
Sophia watched coffee overflow the mug and spread across the counter in a brown sheet.
She had forgotten to turn off the machine.
---
Grace arrived at eight fifteen wearing a yellow raincoat and carrying two bagels.
"You look terrible," she said.
"Good morning."
"I brought sesame. It was the kindest option available."
Sophia told her about the call.
Grace stopped opening the paper bag.
"I'm coming."
"Muñoz said attorney."
"I can glare in a legally adjacent way."
"That's not representation."
"No, but it improves most rooms."
They ate at the gallery counter while rainwater ticked through a downspout outside. Sophia could only finish half her bagel.
The empty center pedestal had been removed. A pale rectangle remained on the concrete where it had stood, cleaner than the surrounding floor.
Grace followed her gaze.
"Insurance approved the claim."
"That isn't why I was looking."
"I know."
Sophia rubbed her thumb over the edge of the paper plate.
"I always knew something was wrong at Hale and Voss. Marcus would come home with headaches whenever Diane scheduled late meetings. Then he'd buy something expensive the next day, like proof that everything was fine."
"You couldn't investigate a company you didn't work for."
"I could've asked more."
"You did. He called you suspicious."
Sophia remembered that word exactly.
Suspicious, because she had asked why a quarterly bonus arrived during a year Marcus described as disastrous. Ungrateful, because she did not celebrate the new SUV. Dramatic, because she noticed he had started locking the office door.
"I stopped asking," she said.
Grace wiped cream cheese from her thumb.
"You were trying to survive your marriage, not audit it."
---
Muñoz met them in a conference room with no windows and a thermostat set too low.
Two forensic analysts sat near the far end of the table. A projector displayed a directory tree packed with folders, dates, and contract numbers.
Muñoz pointed to a stack of printed pages.
"The drive contains internal Hale and Voss financial records from the last nine fiscal years. Some files appear genuine. Others are altered copies."
Sophia sat forward.
"Altered how?"
One analyst, a thin man named Patel, clicked to the next screen.
Two invoices appeared side by side. Both carried the same project number and vendor name. One listed a payment of eighty-four thousand dollars. The other listed two hundred thirty-six thousand.
"The larger amount was submitted in Hale and Voss's internal approval chain," Patel said. "The smaller amount appears in the subcontractor's reported revenue."
Grace folded her arms.
"Where did the difference go?"
"That's what we're tracing."
Muñoz opened another file.
"There are dozens of examples. Falsified invoices, duplicate subcontractor payments, consulting fees to companies with no active employees."
Sophia read the approval line.
MARCUS HALE, CFO.
His electronic signature appeared in a blue box beneath the amount.
"He approved these."
"His credentials did," Muñoz said. "We still have to prove who initiated each transaction and whether he knew the invoice was false."
"He was CFO."
"That gives him responsibility. Knowledge is a separate question."
Sophia looked at the dates.
The earliest file came from the year after she and Marcus married. She remembered that winter because their furnace failed for three days, and they slept in the living room beside a space heater.
Marcus had still been coming home before seven then.
He brought takeout soup and complained that Diane checked every expense twice.
Sophia almost said the memory aloud.
Instead, she asked, "Why was the drive outside the company?"
Patel changed screens.
"Metadata suggests many files were copied from a Hale and Voss server eighteen months ago. Additional folders were added more recently."
"By Marcus?"
"Unknown. The device has passed through more than one computer."
Muñoz slid a photograph across the table. It showed the black hard drive in its evidence bag, the faded tape now visible under brighter light.
B-17 had been written on the tape in pencil.
"Does that mean anything to you?" she asked.
Sophia shook her head.
"Hale and Voss had an archive room with numbered banker boxes. Marcus sometimes called them B numbers."
"Where?"
"Basement level of the company offices."
"Who had access?"
"Executives, accounting, probably records staff. Diane kept a key."
Muñoz sat back.
"We obtained a preservation order for the company's financial systems this morning."
Grace gave a quiet whistle.
"Does Marcus know?"
"His attorney does."
Sophia looked again at the invoices.
"How much money?"
Patel exchanged a glance with Muñoz.
"The confirmed discrepancy is just over three million dollars. The suspected total is higher."
Sophia's fingers tightened around the printed page.
Marcus had once argued with her for buying a four-hundred-dollar kiln shelf without discussing it first.
Three million.
Maybe more.
"Where did it go?"
"Shell vendors, related companies, and transfers we're still mapping," Muñoz said. "Several authorizations carry Marcus's signature. Some vendor addresses have connections to Hale family properties."
"Connections to Marcus?"
"Not all of them."
Muñoz closed the folder.
"Do not contact him about this. Do not contact Diane Voss. If either approaches you, document it and call me."
Grace leaned forward.
"Diane already sent two messages through a gallery donor asking Sophia to keep family issues private."
"Send them to me."
Sophia looked at the approval signatures until the letters in Marcus's name blurred.
Not grief. Fatigue.
She pressed one fingertip to the paper and forced her focus back.
"He said Diane didn't know what was on the drive."
Muñoz's eyes narrowed.
"When?"
Sophia described the studio visit. She mentioned the recording.
Grace turned toward her.
"You recorded him?"
"The camera did. My phone too."
"I am deeply proud."
Muñoz held out her hand.
"I need copies."
---
That night, Sophia and Grace stayed after closing to clean beneath the movable walls.
Most of the shattered glass had been collected, but tiny cobalt fragments still appeared in cracks near the baseboards. Grace swept them into a dustpan while Sophia used a flashlight along the floor.
"One more," Sophia said.
A bright blue splinter lay beneath the radiator.
Grace crouched.
"Do you want it?"
Sophia looked at the sliver.
"No."
Grace swept it up.
They worked without music. The broom made a soft rasp across concrete. Somewhere above them, pipes knocked when a neighboring tenant turned on hot water.
"Three million," Grace said.
"Confirmed."
"Marcus signed."
"His credentials did."
Grace glanced at her.
"You sound like Muñoz."
"Because she's right. I don't want him excused, but I want the actual answer."
"You still care what happens to him."
Sophia sat on the floor beside the blank space where Blue Current had stood.
"I care what was true. Those aren't the same thing."
Grace set the broom against the wall and joined her.
For a while, they watched headlights move across the front windows.
"The night before I left him," Sophia said, "Marcus sat at our kitchen table with a stack of invoices. He kept clicking his pen. Over and over. I asked what was wrong, and he said the company had one bad quarter."
She rubbed dust between her fingers.
"Then he looked at me and asked whether I would still love him if Hale and Voss disappeared."
"What did you say?"
"I said yes."
Grace waited.
"He called me a liar."
A bus groaned to a stop outside, then pulled away.
Sophia stood and brushed dust from her jeans.
"He knew something. Maybe not all of it. Enough to be afraid."
Her phone buzzed on the gallery counter.
A message from Muñoz appeared.
We traced the first group of shell vendors. Several addresses are connected to Diane Voss.
May you like
Sophia read it twice.
Marcus's signature was everywhere, but the money had been traveling toward someone else.
