Chapter 18 - The Ghost of East Point
I didn't tell Claire about the photograph. I couldn't risk waking the fears she had fought so hard to overcome. Instead, I called Marcus into my private study after midnight, sliding the note across the heavy mahogany desk.
“Trace the paper stock and the ink,” I ordered, my voice hard as iron. “And find out who had access to surveillance archives of the Georgia State library from fifteen years ago.”
Marcus studied the note, his brow furrowing deeply. “Boss, this handwriting… it doesn't look like a corporate syndicate or an international cartel. It looks amateurish. Deliberately disguised.”
“Find them, Marcus,” I said. “Before they come anywhere near my family.”
Within twenty-four hours, our private tracking network bore fruit. The paper stock was traced to a defunct print shop in East Point—the same run-down industrial district where I used to scavenge scrap metal as a teenager. And the security logs showed that someone had accessed the municipal transit archives referencing my father’s old auto shop just three days prior.
The name registered to the rental vehicle used to pick up the surveillance files was a name I hadn't heard in over a decade.
May you like
Lucas Vance.
Not Vanessa’s brother Julian, and not Thomas Vale. Lucas Vance was an estranged cousin of the Vale family—a brilliant, unhinged computer scientist who had been disowned by his corporate dynasty years ago after embezzling millions from their experimental research division. He blamed me for the destruction of the entire Vale empire, and he wanted revenge not by corporate takeover, but by destroying the very foundation of my life: the day I met Claire.
