Chapter 148: The Missing File

Chapter 148: Chapter 148: The Missing File

Audrey did not blink. She just stared at the glowing white screen.

"Proceed with the revised account as discussed."

She highlighted the corrupted document’s alphanumeric reference number, copied it, and pasted it directly into the search bar. She hit enter.

A dozen files populated the screen. Most were completely routine. Expense reports. Maintenance logs. Then, one specific folder caught her eye.

EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATION. SPECIAL REVIEW. NOVEMBER TO DECEMBER 2019.

Audrey clicked it. "Look at this."

Ben and Daisy leaned in close. They quickly pulled up the access permissions. The senior operations executive had physical access to the archives. Executive Administration, however, held final approval authority.

Audrey looked at Ben. "Someone didn’t just change the record."

"Someone approved the change," Ben finished quietly.

Ben started typing rapidly. He bypassed the corrupted text and looked for cross references in the administrative requests. A new memo popped up on the screen. It did not have a proper name attached. It just had a subject line.

"The university player."

Ben immediately stopped typing. "That is Mason."

Daisy frowned. "Why would they call him that instead of just using his name?"

"Because whoever wrote the request already knew exactly who they were talking about," Audrey realized. A cold feeling washed over her.

She checked the timestamp on the memo. It was created weeks after the original event. It was not written during the initial panic. It was calculated. Someone deliberately returned to the records weeks later to plant him there.

Ben ran the administrative reference number through another database filter.

"Here," Ben pointed at his screen. "East wing access authorization."

He pulled up two different versions of the exact same document. The original version was incredibly simple.

Restricted access. Authorized personnel only.

The revised version had extra words tacked onto the end.

Restricted access. Authorized personnel and designated club representatives.

Right underneath the new addition, Mason’s name was printed in clear black letters. Now they had a concrete pattern. The schedule was altered. The access authorization was altered. The official account was altered. All of them connected to the exact same period in time.

Audrey stared at the screen. "They weren’t correcting the record."

Ben looked at her. His jaw was locked tight. "They were building one."

This time, Ben did not make a sarcastic joke. He was genuinely angry. Someone deliberately created a false paper trail around a university football player who had absolutely no reason to know what was happening inside a corporate financial department.

The heavy metal door of the archive room groaned open.

Zane Kessler walked in. He immediately noticed the massive spread of documents covering the desk and the glowing laptop screens. His easy expression completely vanished.

"You need to stop," Zane said.

Ben slowly looked up from his computer. "No."

Zane paused. "Excuse me?"

Ben closed his laptop with a sharp snap. He stood up and walked directly over to the door. "You have had your turn."

Zane’s expression hardened. "Ben."

"Every time we find something, you appear, tell us we are getting too close, and disappear," Ben stated firmly.

Daisy pressed her lips together, trying very hard not to smile. Audrey simply watched from her chair.

Zane turned toward the door to leave. Ben took a step sideways, completely blocking the exit with his body.

"We are talking today," Ben commanded.

Zane looked at him. "Move."

"No."

"You are making a mistake."

"Maybe," Ben replied. He gestured toward a cheap plastic chair near the table. "Sit down."

Zane actually let out a short laugh. "Are you kidnapping me?"

"No," Ben said. A beat passed. "I am temporarily preventing you from dramatically walking away."

Daisy chimed in from the floor. "That is kidnapping with better vocabulary."

"Thank you," Ben replied.

Zane looked between them like he was seriously questioning every single career decision that brought him to this exact basement. But eventually, he let out a heavy sigh and sat down.

Audrey slid the printed, altered documents directly in front of him.

"No more warnings," Audrey told him strictly. "No riddles. Tell us what happened."

Zane looked at the papers for several seconds. The silence was thick. Then, he finally spoke.

"Mason wasn’t involved in the financial discrepancy," Zane stated clearly.

It was the very first major confirmation. Not speculation. Not an implication. Zane actually knew the truth.

"Then why was his name added?" Audrey asked immediately.

Zane leaned back in the uncomfortable chair. He explained what he knew. In 2019, Mason was present around the club simply because of his status as a university captain and because club officials were interested in him.

"But he was never supposed to be in the restricted room connected to the financial issue," Zane explained. "Someone later altered the records to make it appear that he had legitimate access to that specific area."

"Why him?" Ben demanded.

Zane finally explained the dark, logical reason Mason’s name was so useful to them. Mason was young. He was a recognizable university football player. He was connected to the club and frequently seen around the football facilities. More importantly, he was preparing to leave the country for his professional opportunity.

That made him an incredibly convenient person to place into an altered timeline. If questions ever came up later, his presence in a restricted area could be easily explained away as routine football business.

"He was the perfect name," Zane said quietly.

Audrey’s stomach dropped straight to the floor. "Perfect for what?"

"For making an impossible timeline look ordinary," Zane answered.

The realization was chilling. They did not use Mason because they hated him. They used him because he was believable.

Audrey asked the massive question they had been avoiding.

"What about Daniel Mercer?" Audrey asked.

Zane finally gave them something substantial. Daniel Mercer was the one who discovered something was wrong in the financial records. He noticed massive payments did not match the official corporate ledgers and raised his concerns directly to senior management.

"The scramble began after Mercer’s complaint," Zane said. "The formal revisions came weeks later, once the panic had settled."

Mercer discovered the discrepancy. He raised the complaint. The company panicked. The original records were gathered and manipulated. Weeks later, the official versions were revised, Mason’s name was inserted, and the new story became the record.

"Who ordered the changes?" Audrey asked.

Zane hesitated. This time, he did not give them another riddle. He answered with brutal honesty.

"I do not know," Zane admitted.

Ben crossed his arms. "I don’t believe you."

Zane looked directly at him. "I know who had authority. I do not know who gave the actual order."

Zane was not withholding information for dramatic effect. He genuinely did not have the final answer. But he gave them one incredibly useful piece of information. The senior operations executive was not acting alone. Someone from Executive Administration contacted him after Mercer raised his complaint.

Zane remembered seeing the executive leave a private meeting with someone from that department. He never saw the person’s face clearly. But he remembered one very specific thing. A black executive folder. It had a particular Calloway corporate seal stamped on the front.

The interrogation was officially over. Ben stepped away from the heavy door. Zane stood up from the plastic chair. Before leaving, Zane stopped and looked at Audrey.

"You wanted the truth," Zane said quietly.

Audrey nodded.

"Now you have part of it," Zane told her. He looked down at the scattered documents. "Be careful with the rest."

Ben immediately held up a warning finger. "Do not start."

Zane actually almost smiled. "I wasn’t going to."

He opened the door and walked out.

Audrey, Ben, and Daisy quickly regrouped around the table. They finally knew the core facts. Mason was not part of the financial scheme. His name was deliberately inserted. Multiple records were altered. Senior Operations carried out at least some of the changes, and Executive Administration held the approval authority. Someone from Executive Admin met with the senior operations executive after Mercer’s complaint.

But they still did not know who.

"Wait," Daisy said suddenly. "Zane said the meeting happened after Mercer’s complaint?"

Ben nodded.

"That puts it in December," Daisy realized. She immediately opened the December 2019 event archive on her laptop. She scrolled rapidly through the digital albums.

"What are you looking for?" Audrey asked.

"A needle in a very large haystack," Daisy muttered, her eyes scanning the screen.

She clicked on a wide shot of a boring corporate event held late that month.

"Look at the background," Daisy instructed.

She pointed to a table near the edge of the frame. A black folder was sitting on it. It had the exact same Calloway executive seal that Zane just described. Daisy zoomed in closely on the image. The resolution was slightly blurry, but they could clearly see a tiny white label stuck to the spine of the folder.

It was a string of alphanumeric digits. A reference number.

It was the exact same reference number attached to the corrupted document Audrey had found.

Audrey’s eyes went wide. "That is it."

Ben leaned toward the screen. "What?"

Audrey pointed directly at the black folder in the photograph.

"That is the missing paper trail."