Chapter 4The Visitor Logs

Sloane’s apartment smelled of stale coffee and sleepless desperation.

She’d been hunched over her laptop since 5 a.m., the visitor logs glowing on her screen like a puzzle missing its most important pieces. Three days—Wednesday, Thursday, Friday of the week before Dexter’s father died—were simply gone. Not corrupted. Not accidentally deleted. *Gone*, as if someone had reached into the system and plucked them out.

Her phone buzzed. Dexter’s name.

“Tell me you found something,” he said, no greeting.

“The logs are incomplete. Three days are missing.”

Silence. Then: “That’s not possible. My father’s security system automatically backups to a private server.”

“Except someone deleted them. And your assistant, Emily, told me it was a ‘routine purge.’ When I pressed, she got defensive. Said Tristan authorized the cleanup last week.”

Another silence, longer this time. When Dexter spoke again, his voice had gone cold. “Tristan doesn’t have authority over the household security logs.”

“Then he’s hiding something.”

“I’ll handle Emily. Meet me in my office in an hour.”

The line went dead.

---

Dexter’s office was all glass and steel, a cathedral of power with a view of the Manhattan skyline. But today, the man behind the desk looked nothing like a CEO. His tie was loose, his jaw tight, his eyes dark with barely contained fury.

Emily stood before him, arms crossed, chin lifted in defiance.

“I’m asking you one more time,” Dexter said, his voice deceptively calm. “Who told you to delete those logs?”

“I already explained, Mr. Vane. It was a routine—”

“Don’t.” He stood, the movement fluid and predatory. “I’ve checked the deletion timestamp. It happened at 2:47 a.m. three days after my father died. Routine purges happen on the first of the month. So I’ll ask again: *Who*?”

Emily’s composure cracked. She glanced at the door, then back at Dexter. “Mr. Park said it was part of the estate transition. That your father had requested certain files be removed before his death. I didn’t question it.”

“Tristan told you this personally?”

“Yes.”

Dexter’s jaw muscle pulsed. “You’re dismissed. Send Tristan to my office.”

Emily fled. Sloane watched the door close, then turned to Dexter. “You believe her?”

“She’s a terrible liar. Which means Tristan *did* order the deletion.” He ran a hand through his hair. “The question is why.”

“Maybe we should ask him directly.”

“Not yet. If Tristan is involved, confronting him without proof is a mistake. We need to find the mole first, then we’ll see how the pieces fit.”

Sloane pulled up her laptop. “From what I managed to reconstruct, there was a visitor those three days who never signed in. A ‘consultant’ according to the gate logs, but the name field is blank. I cross-referenced employee records and found someone who matches the profile: Marcus Webb, mid-level executive in strategic partnerships. He had access to the house for a ‘project briefing’ the week before your father died. But here’s the thing—Marcus was never assigned to any project involving your father.”

Dexter’s eyes narrowed. “Marcus Webb. I know him. Quiet, efficient, never draws attention. The perfect person to move unnoticed.”

“Then let’s find out what he knows.”

---

The Vane Industries parking garage was a concrete labyrinth of fluorescent lights and shadowed corners. Sloane and Dexter moved through the rows of luxury cars, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space.

Marcus’s car—a nondescript gray sedan—sat in its usual spot. But Marcus himself was nowhere in sight.

“He’s not here,” Sloane said, scanning the area.

“He will be. His schedule shows a meeting at 9 a.m.”

They waited. Five minutes. Ten. The garage was silent except for the hum of ventilation systems.

Then footsteps.

Marcus appeared from behind a pillar, briefcase in hand, moving toward his car. He was average in every way—medium height, brown hair, forgettable face. The kind of person you’d pass in a hallway and never remember.

“Marcus.” Dexter’s voice cut through the garage.

Marcus froze. His eyes darted between Dexter and Sloane, and in that moment, Sloane saw it: fear. Raw, visceral fear that turned his face pale.

“Mr. Vane. I wasn’t expecting—”

“I need to ask you about the week my father died. Specifically, about the three days you visited the house without signing in.”

Marcus’s hand moved toward his jacket. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t.” Dexter’s voice was sharp. “I have the gate logs. I know you were there.”

Marcus’s hand stopped. He stared at Dexter, his expression shifting from fear to something else—resignation. “You don’t understand what you’re getting into.”

“Then explain it to me.”

Marcus laughed, a bitter sound. “You think you’re the hero of this story, don’t you? The grieving son seeking justice. But you don’t know the half of it.”

“Then tell me.”

“I was just a courier. That’s all. I delivered messages, picked up documents. I never asked who they were for or what they contained. That was the deal—I stay blind, I stay alive.”

“Who were you delivering to?”

Marcus’s eyes flickered to Sloane, then back to Dexter. “You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“Your mother.”

The word hung in the air like smoke. Dexter’s face went blank, his body rigid.

“That’s a lie.”

“I wish it was.” Marcus’s voice cracked. “She contacted me a week before your father died. Said she needed someone discreet, someone who wouldn’t ask questions. I thought it was a surprise for his birthday—gifts, arrangements, that kind of thing. But then she started asking about his schedule, his appointments, who he was meeting. And then he died.”

“You’re saying my mother *poisoned* my father?”

“I’m saying I don’t know what she did. But I delivered a package to her the night before he died. Small, wrapped in brown paper. She told me to leave it in her study and forget I was ever there.”

Dexter took a step forward, his hands clenched into fists. “Why should I believe you?”

“Because I’m terrified. Because she’s been watching me ever since. Because I received this last night.”

Marcus pulled out his phone and turned the screen toward them. A text message glowed:

*You’re getting closer. But so am I.*

The same message Dexter had received.

Before either of them could react, the screech of tires echoed through the garage. A black sedan rounded the corner, moving fast, headlights blazing.

“Get down!” Sloane grabbed Dexter’s arm and pulled him behind a concrete pillar as the sedan roared past, bullets spraying the ground where they’d been standing.

Marcus wasn’t so lucky. A bullet caught him in the shoulder, spinning him around. He collapsed against his car, blood spreading across his white shirt.

The sedan squealed to a halt. The driver’s door opened, and a figure stepped out—silhouetted against the headlights, featureless and threatening.

“The package,” the figure said, voice distorted by a mask. “Where is it?”

Marcus coughed, blood on his lips. “Gone. Already delivered.”

“To whom?”

“Ask his mother. She knows everything.”

The figure raised a gun. Dexter lunged forward, but Sloane held him back.

“Don’t. He’s already dead.”

The figure fired once. Marcus’s body went limp.

Then the figure turned toward them. The mask was blank, featureless, like a face without eyes.

“You two should learn to stay out of things that don’t concern you.”

The figure climbed back into the sedan, and the car sped away, tires screaming against concrete.

Silence.

Dexter stood frozen, staring at Marcus’s body. Sloane’s hand was still gripping his arm, her heart pounding in her ears.

“She knows everything,” Dexter whispered. “My mother. He said my mother knows everything.”

“Dexter—”

“She couldn’t have done this. She loved him. I *saw* her grieve.”

“I know.” Sloane’s voice was soft. “But we have to ask her.”

Dexter’s phone buzzed. Then Sloane’s. They looked at each other, dread pooling in their stomachs.

Sloane pulled out her phone. A new message, from an unknown number.

Attached: a photo.

It was Dexter’s mother, sitting in a café, speaking across a table to a man whose face was partially obscured. The man was handing her an envelope.

The timestamp: two days before Dexter’s father died.

Below the photo, a single line of text:

*Ask her about the package, Dexter. She’ll tell you everything.*

Sloane looked up. Dexter’s face was pale, his eyes fixed on the screen, his world crumbling around him.

The mole was dead. The mystery was deepening. And Dexter’s mother was no longer just a grieving widow—she was a suspect.