Chapter 2 - THE EMAIL AT 7:03 A.M.
At 7:03 the next morning, Tyler Carter opened an email that made him forget how to breathe.
Natalie knew the exact time because Meridian’s secure system logged when every notification was opened.
She was sitting on the edge of a narrow hotel bed ten minutes from the arena, one ruined skate beside her and her father’s old silver stopwatch resting in her palm.
The watch had not worked in eleven years.
She still carried it to every major competition.
Her father used to stand at the boards during practice and click the little silver button before she began a program.
“Don’t race the clock,” he would tell her. “Make the clock chase you.”
He had died when Natalie was fifteen.
Afterward, the family had reorganized itself around Tyler’s problems.
Natalie learned to reorganize herself around survival.
Her Meridian laptop chimed.
SUBJECT: NOTICE OF FORMAL INVESTIGATION AND PRESERVATION REQUIREMENT
Tyler had opened it.
Natalie closed her eyes.
Not victory.
Not yet.
Just the beginning.
Her supervisor, Dana Mercer, appeared on the secure video screen.
Dana was fifty-eight, gray-haired, sharp-eyed, and incapable of wasting three words when one would do.
“He opened it.”
“I saw.”
“Your mother?”
“Still sleeping, probably.”
“You sure?”
Natalie looked toward the dark window.
“No.”
Dana leaned toward her camera.
“Then stop assuming.”
That was why Natalie trusted her.
Three weeks earlier, Meridian had flagged an account registered under Natalie’s name at Northstar Athlete Consulting.
The company claimed to provide sponsorship management.
In reality, Meridian suspected Northstar was moving money between gamblers, intermediaries, and people connected to athletes.
Natalie’s supposed account had received seventeen thousand dollars.
Then almost all of it disappeared.
Tyler’s twelve-thousand-dollar debt surfaced two days later.
At first, Natalie believed he had simply stolen her identity to cover gambling losses.
That was bad enough.
Then Meridian discovered something worse.
The account had not been created recently.
It was nine months old.
Someone had been using Natalie’s name through most of the competitive season.
“You received the replacement authorization?” Dana asked.
Natalie nodded.
Her coach, Marisol Vega, had contacted the manufacturer overnight.
Natalie’s backup boots were being fitted with emergency competition blades at the arena.
They would not feel right.
Nothing replaced skates molded perfectly to your feet.
But she could compete.
That alone destroyed part of Tyler’s plan.
Her phone vibrated.
MOM
Natalie let it ring.
Again.
Again.
On the fourth call, she answered.
Her mother did not say hello.
“What did you do?”
Natalie stared at the cracked heel of her skate.
“What Tyler forced me to do.”
“He says his bank accounts are frozen.”
“They’re restricted pending review.”
“You work for that company. Fix it.”
“No.”
“Natalie, whatever he did, he was scared.”
“So was I when he destroyed six years of work.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Natalie almost laughed.
Instead, she became quiet.
Her mother hated that silence more than shouting.
“Mom, did you know Tyler used my name?”
A pause.
Too long.
Natalie’s fingers tightened around the stopwatch.
“Mom?”
“I knew he borrowed some information.”
Natalie stood.
“Borrowed?”
“He said it was for a consulting application.”
“My Social Security number?”
“He needed your old tax form.”
The hotel room seemed to tilt.
Natalie had spent three weeks trying to determine how Tyler obtained enough information to pass identity verification.
Now she knew.
“You gave it to him.”
Her mother’s voice softened.
“He said he had a legitimate opportunity.”
“You went into my files?”
“You kept boxes here.”
“They were sealed.”
“I’m your mother.”
Natalie stared at nothing.
That sentence had excused too much for too long.
“Did you sign anything?”
“No.”
“Did you upload anything?”
“No.”
“Did you give him my passport copy?”
Another pause.
Natalie closed her eyes.
“Oh, God.”
“It was on the printer after your Canada trip!”
“You copied it?”
“I sent him a picture.”
Dana was already typing notes.
Natalie felt suddenly cold.
Her mother had not merely defended Tyler afterward.
She had unknowingly helped him build Natalie’s false identity.
“Why?”
“Because your brother said he finally found something he was good at.”
The answer landed differently than Natalie expected.
There was no cruelty in her mother’s voice.
There was exhaustion.
Hope.
Desperation.
For one second, Natalie saw a woman who had spent eleven years trying to prevent one child from collapsing while assuming the other would always stand.
It did not excuse her.
But it explained the pattern.
Then shouting erupted through the phone.
Tyler.
“Give me that.”
A rustle.
“Natalie.”
His voice was no longer smug.
“What did Meridian send Northstar?”
“A preservation notice.”
“You need to withdraw it.”
“I can’t.”
“You started it.”
“No. Evidence started it.”
He swore.
“You don’t understand who these people are.”
“I understand more than you think.”
“No, you don’t.”
Natalie looked toward Dana.
Dana slowly shook her head, warning her not to reveal too much.
Tyler lowered his voice.
“The twelve grand isn’t mine.”
Natalie stopped.
“What?”
“That’s what they told me I owed after the Denver event.”
Denver.
Natalie had competed there six months earlier.
She placed second after falling unexpectedly during her free skate.
A memory surfaced.
Tyler had attended.
He never attended competitions.
At the time, he claimed Mom insisted.
“What happened in Denver?”
Tyler breathed hard.
“I gave someone information.”
“What information?”
“Your practice times. Your ankle problem. Stuff like that.”
Natalie sat down slowly.
Her ankle injury had never been public.
Odds on her winning had shifted dramatically the night before the Denver final.
Meridian had noticed.
That shift eventually became part of the investigation.
“You sold my medical information?”
“They said it was analytics.”
“And you believed them?”
“At first.”
“Then what?”
Silence.
“Tyler.”
“They paid me.”
“How much?”
“Five thousand.”
Natalie felt sick.
“Then they wanted more.”
“What did you give them?”
“Nothing important.”
“Tyler.”
He whispered, “Your hotel room number.”
Natalie’s blood turned cold.
The night before Denver, someone had pulled the fire alarm on her floor at 2:13 a.m.
She had stood outside in freezing rain for nearly forty minutes.
She barely slept.
At the time, everyone called it bad luck.
Dana’s face changed.
So did Natalie’s understanding of the last year.
This had started long before twelve thousand dollars.
“Why destroy my skates?”
Tyler said nothing.
She heard Mom crying somewhere behind him.
Then Tyler finally spoke.
“They told me you weren’t supposed to skate tomorrow.”
Natalie looked at Dana.
“They?”
“One of the Northstar guys.”
“Name.”
“I only know him as Reed.”
“What did Reed threaten?”
“My debt doubled if you competed.”
Natalie’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I swear.”
Tyler’s voice cracked.
Not performance.
Fear.
“There was one more thing.”
Natalie waited.
“Last week, Reed showed me a picture.”
“What picture?”
“You.”
Her skin prickled.
“Where?”
“At the rink.”
Dana stood from her chair.
Tyler continued.
“You were standing beside Marisol near the west entrance.”
Natalie turned automatically toward the hotel door.
“What was the point of the picture?”
“He said, ‘Your sister still thinks this is about gambling.’”
Silence swallowed the room.
Then Tyler said something that made Dana grab her phone.
“There was someone else in the photo, Natalie.”
“Who?”
“The man standing behind you.”
Natalie remembered nobody.
May you like
Tyler swallowed.
“He was wearing Dad’s coat.”
