Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO KNOW
“Sloane Prescott has the only known copy of the original Beacon evaluation?”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not necessarily the only copy. But the device fingerprint matches the encrypted drive used during the unauthorized access.”
I looked at Rebecca.
“Then we need to know exactly what she took and why.”
“We can request the device and preserve the evidence,” Rebecca replied. “But there's something you need to understand.”
“What?”
“The technical report currently being used to justify Beacon's sale may be false.”
I stared at her.
“False?”
Daniel placed two charts on my desk.
One showed Beacon as an expensive product with serious security failures.
The other showed internal testing from six months earlier, when the technology had performed exceptionally well.
“The company went from promising results to a catastrophic evaluation,” he explained. “But we can't find evidence of the failures described in Arthur's report.”
I looked at the figures.
If the earlier results were accurate, Beacon could be worth several times the proposed sale price.
Somebody wanted Lumina's most valuable technology transferred out of the company before Aegis understood what it owned.
And my ex-husband had helped that person access my computer.
“Invite Sloane to meet with us,” I said.
Rebecca frowned.
“Today?”
“Yes. Tell her we need to discuss the technical evaluation. Don't mention Brent.”
Sloane arrived at four that afternoon.
She wasn't wearing the gold jewelry or designer gown I'd seen at The Alder Room.
Instead, she wore dark trousers and a simple white blouse.
For the first time, I noticed how tired she looked.
There were shadows beneath her eyes.
Her hair was pulled into a loose knot.
She sat across from me while Rebecca remained beside the conference table.
“Am I being suspended?” Sloane asked.
“Not at this moment,” I replied. “But we need truthful answers.”
She folded her hands.
“About the transfers?”
“And the silver drive you used on my computer.”
Her expression tightened.
I watched her struggle to maintain composure.
Then she quietly asked, “Did Brent tell you?”
“He told me enough.”
She looked down.
“I knew using that computer was wrong.”
“Then why did you do it?”
She took a breath.
“Because Arthur told me the company would collapse if I didn't.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Explain.”
Sloane stared at the window.
“When I became CEO, Lumina was already under pressure. Beacon was behind schedule, investors were impatient, and our development costs kept increasing.”
“That much is documented,” I said.
“Arthur told me Aegis was considering cutting funding. He said the only way to protect Lumina was to prepare an emergency restructuring.”
“And you believed him?”
“He was your representative.”
The answer landed harder than I expected.
Sloane continued.
“Arthur showed me figures indicating that Beacon was performing badly. He said our engineers had overstated the technology's capabilities.”
“Did you verify those claims?”
“I tried. The original evaluation was restricted.”
“So you accessed my computer?”
She nodded.
“Arthur said your old laptop still had authorization to retrieve an archived report. He told me it was permitted, but that the process couldn't be discussed publicly because of security concerns.”
Rebecca gave her a skeptical look.
“And you didn't think that sounded suspicious?”
“Of course I did.”
Sloane's voice cracked.
“But I had eight hundred employees depending on me. I had lenders demanding answers. Every meeting felt like another warning that I'd failed.”
I studied her.
“You could have contacted me.”
She gave a sad little laugh.
“Arthur told me you never involved yourself in operational problems unless they became catastrophic.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
That wasn't true.
But I had allowed Arthur to represent me at many routine Lumina meetings.
I had trusted his judgment.
And now that trust had become a weapon.
“What happened when you accessed the report?” I asked.
“I copied it. I thought Arthur wanted independent verification.”
“Did you examine it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
She looked directly at me.
“The report didn't match what Arthur had shown us.”
Rebecca stopped writing.
“What do you mean?”
“The original report said Beacon was performing better than expected.”
Silence settled around the table.
Sloane continued.
“I confronted Arthur the next morning. He told me the archived report was outdated.”
“Did you believe him?”
“At first.”
“Then why keep the copy?”
“Because something felt wrong.”
I leaned forward.
“Where is the drive?”
She hesitated.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Sloane.”
“If I give it to you, will you protect the engineering team?”
I stared at her.
“Why would they need protection?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because Arthur threatened to close their entire division if I questioned the restructuring.”
Twenty minutes later, Rebecca arranged for an independent evidence specialist to receive the drive through a documented transfer.
Sloane admitted she had concealed important information and violated company security procedures.
But she also described something that didn't fit the picture of a greedy executive stealing millions.
She had spent her own savings covering a short payroll delay.
She had personally contacted customers whose contracts were at risk.
And she had repeatedly argued against shutting down Beacon's research team.
That didn't excuse her behavior.
But it changed the questions I needed to ask.
“Why didn't you bring this to the board?” I said.
“Because Arthur controlled the information reaching most directors.”
“Not all directors.”
“No.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I could have contacted you directly.”
“Yes, you could.”
“I was afraid you'd replace me.”
“Fear doesn't excuse dishonesty.”
“I know.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then she asked something unexpected.
“Did Brent really spend seven years believing you were a bookkeeper?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
“He said you weren't interested in business.”
“Brent rarely listened when I talked about work.”
She gave a small, unhappy smile.
“He told me you were incapable of understanding ambition.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
I let the silence linger.
Then I said, “Sloane, you insulted me at the restaurant because you thought my position in life was beneath yours.”
She lowered her eyes.
“I did.”
“That had nothing to do with Arthur. Or Beacon. Or corporate pressure.”
“No.”
“Then don't use those things to excuse it.”
She nodded.
“I'm sorry, Whitney.”
I believed she meant it.
But an apology couldn't erase her decisions.
And I still had questions about the man she had married.
That evening, I met privately with Lumina's senior engineering director, Evelyn Brooks.
Evelyn was fifty-four, with graying hair and the practical manner of someone who had spent thirty years solving technical problems.
She placed a worn binder on the table.
“These are the team's original testing records.”
I turned the pages.
“Why weren't they submitted with the quarterly review?”
“Martin Kessler told us they were being incorporated into the final assessment.”
Martin.
Lumina's chief financial officer.
The man who had approved the questionable invoices.
“Did you question him?”
“Repeatedly.”
“What happened?”
“He said our department had become too expensive.”
Evelyn paused.
“Then Arthur visited the lab.”
“When?”
“About two months ago.”
“What did he want?”
“He asked for an inventory of every component used to build Beacon.”
I frowned.
“That sounds routine.”
“It would have been, except he wanted a list of the engineers who knew how to reconstruct the platform without our existing servers.”
I looked up.
“Why?”
“I asked him that.”
“And?”
“He said the company needed a disaster recovery plan.”
Evelyn opened the binder to a photograph.
It showed six engineers standing beside an early Beacon prototype.
A smiling young man held a small silver hardware module.
“That's my son, Nathan,” Evelyn said softly.
I looked at her.
“Your son works on the project?”
“He helped design Beacon's original authentication architecture. He left Lumina last year after a disagreement with Martin.”
“What disagreement?”
Evelyn's expression hardened.
“Nathan discovered that somebody had copied part of Beacon's source code into an outside development environment.”
My pulse quickened.
“Did he report it?”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“Arthur Harrington.”
I stared at her.
“What happened afterward?”
“Nathan was told the transfer was authorized. He refused to accept that answer.”
“Then?”
“He resigned.”
Evelyn reached into the binder and removed a small photograph.
Nathan stood beside her at a graduation ceremony.
On the back, he'd written:
Mom, you taught me that doing the right thing is never wasted.
Her fingers trembled slightly.
“He's been trying to find work ever since,” she said. “Arthur told people he couldn't be trusted.”
I looked at the photograph.
A career destroyed.
A company pushed toward collapse.
And an executive team frightened into silence.
The theft of twelve million dollars was beginning to look like only one part of a much larger scheme.
Before Evelyn left, she handed me a sealed envelope.
“Nathan wanted me to give this to someone outside Lumina if anything happened to the project.”
Inside was a printed image of an internal server directory.
One folder was labeled:
BEACON — EXTERNAL REPLICATION.
Beneath it was the name of an offshore technology holding company.
I recognized the company immediately.
Not because it belonged to Arthur.
Not because Sloane had mentioned it.
But because I'd seen its name in an old Aegis acquisition proposal my father had rejected years earlier.
I turned to the final page.
May you like
There, listed as the original project sponsor, was a name I'd trusted my entire adult life.
Arthur Harrington wasn't trying to sell Beacon to a stranger. He was trying to transfer it to a company my father had once accused him of secretly controlling.
