The Unraveling Part 2

Chapter 124: The Unraveling Part 2 Leah read Ethan's message under the conference table while David Choi assigned the SEC response, and for three seconds she forgot how to breathe. Webb was not doing a routine Sterling refresh. He was investigating Catherine Marsh for a connection to Isabella. The name behind the name glowed inside the message like a match held near dry paper. Across from her, Priya asked about adverse-event variance, and two Corporate Development associates nodded as if this were only another accelerated transaction. Leah kept her phone flat against her notebook, lifted her face, and made Catherine Marsh look useful, attentive, and impossible to remember. "Catherine," David said. "Clinical data discrepancy analysis. Monday morning. All five variances, source trails, and risk language tight enough for legal to use." "Understood," Leah said. Her voice did not shake, which felt like the first victory of the day. That was the work. The cover. The weapon. The same files Sebastian wanted buried were now being routed through her because David trusted precision more than fear. By 10:52, the meeting broke, and Leah carried her laptop back to her desk with Webb's suspicion burning through her pocket. The office around her continued as normal: keyboards, elevator chimes, Priya's low voice from the next row. Beneath that normal sound, Leah heard the machinery turning. Sebastian knew there was a leak. Webb knew Catherine Marsh was not clean in the way Sterling said she was clean. Somewhere outside this building, a lawyer who had erased the Voss family was deciding whether a dead girl had learned to wear a different face. Leah made herself work because work was the only response that would not look like fear. Discrepancy one: adverse-event coding shifted from hospitalization to observation. Discrepancy two: withdrawals counted as unrelated. Discrepancy three: cardiac markers excluded from the primary analysis set. She built the table, attached source documents, and wrote every sentence as if Sarah Chen, Howard Pemberton, the SEC, and Arthur Webb might all read it. Accuracy was no longer style. Accuracy was camouflage. At 12:15, her phone buzzed again. Ethan's message appeared beneath the edge of her keyboard: *Hunt Capital has a source inside Costa Holdings legal. Sebastian is pushing to accelerate the NexGen close. Bridge loan from Delacroix to cover the eighteen-million gap. Webb is running Catherine Marsh himself.* Leah typed with her thumbs hidden under the desk. *Does he know about me?* The reply took long enough for her to hear her own pulse. *Not yet. He asked whether Catherine could be connected to Isabella. Sebastian reacted badly.* Reacted badly meant memory had moved. Not grief, not guilt, but recognition. Leah deleted the first answer she wrote because panic always sounded efficient at first and foolish later. She looked across the floor. David was at Priya's desk. No one watched her. No one ever watched Catherine Marsh until after she had already taken what she needed. *I need level-three access sooner,* she wrote. *Sixty-one days is too long.* Ethan answered after another delay. *I can request expedited review through Hunt Capital due diligence. Historical trust administration records, 2000 to 2010. If Pemberton wants to look transparent, he may approve it.* Leah let the sentence settle. Webb had moved against her, and Ethan had found a higher door inside the same movement. The investigation meant to expose Catherine Marsh could become the reason Catherine Marsh entered the restricted archive. That was not safety. It was leverage, and leverage had to be used before fear made it stale. *Do it. Make it routine.* *Already drafted. Sending this afternoon.* The satisfaction came cold and clean. Leah returned to the memo and made the fraud legible. By 3:40, she had mapped all five discrepancies to trial tables, investor language, and the public 3.7 percent variance. She left the financing trail out because the trap would be stronger if legal believed it still controlled the walls around the clinical problem. By 4:30, David stopped at her cubicle and read the top page over her shoulder. "This is strong," he said. "Stronger than legal expected." "The source trail is cleaner if we separate clinical variance from acquisition financing," Leah said. David gave a short nod. "Good instinct. Keep it clinical for now. Let legal decide how much financing language they want." For now. The phrase sat between them like a door left unlatched. Leah thanked him, saved the file, and did not look at her phone until he walked away. At 5:47, the ThorneVault notification appeared. *Access Request #2024-0412: Hunt Capital due diligence team requests expedited review of historical trust administration records (2000-2010). Requested by E. Hunt, Corporate Intelligence Division. Routing to H. Pemberton, General Counsel, for approval. Estimated response time: 24-48 hours.* Leah did not smile. She closed the notification, shut down her laptop, and gathered her coat. The brass key pressed against her pocket. Elena's locket rested against her skin. Webb was hunting Catherine Marsh, but Pemberton now had a request on his desk that might put Leah inside the restricted archive before Webb understood what she had found. In the elevator, she stood between a tax associate and a woman from Investor Relations discussing dinner reservations. The ordinary talk steadied her because it reminded her what her disguise was built to exploit. People noticed panic. They did not notice a junior analyst leaving late with a laptop bag and a face full of deadline fatigue. At home, Leah opened the Moleskine from its hiding place inside War and Peace and wrote the date at the top of a clean page. *SEC formal investigation into NexGen. Webb investigating Catherine Marsh. Isabella question raised. Hunt Capital expedited archive request pending. IRB complaint copy incoming. Next: bank access logs. Next: Martin Alvarez. Next: Reinhardt.* She stopped with the pen above the paper. The list was no longer a plan. It was a countdown. Leah closed the notebook, slid it back into the hollowed book, and opened Ethan's last message again: *The gap between suspicion and confirmation is where we operate.* The gap was narrowing. Tomorrow she would find Martin Alvarez and ask a retired reporter what he had buried for twenty-four years.