Chapter 76 She Was Listening The Whole Time..
The iron gates of the Vane estate groaned as they pulled apart, and Alex didn't slow the car until the gravel of the long driveway turned into the stone courtyard of the main house.
The coastal fog was so thick that the headlights only hit a wall of white vapor, and the house looked like a dark shape against the cliffs, far away from the city and the sirens they had left behind at the studio.
Alex’s mother stood by the heavy front door, she didn't say anything as they climbed out of the car, she just nodded to Sarah and then to Mark.
She led them inside and pointed toward the library, and she didn't ask about the bruise on Alex’s jaw or the way Sarah was gripping the server drives, she just closed the door and locked it with a heavy click.
"The library has its own power grid, and the walls are thick enough to block any signal my father might try to use to track these drives, so we should get to work before the sun comes up," Alex said, his voice was rough from the run through the rain, and he set the equipment down on a large oak table that usually held old books.
"I will handle the cable mapping, and Mark, you need to check the power supply for any surges that might have happened during the raid, because if we lose the data now, we don't have a backup," Sarah said, she took off her damp blazer and tossed it onto a chair, her mind already moving into a cold, organized state that left no room for the fear she had felt back at the studio.
"I’m on it, Mom, the voltage looks steady for now, but I’ll stay on the monitor to make sure the cooling fans don't quit on us," Mark replied, he moved with a fast, efficient energy, and he didn't look at Alex as he worked, he just focused on the wires and the connections.
"Sarah, I need the master key Julian gave you at the docks, the encryption on the Harrington drive is deep, and I have to bypass the secondary firewall before the system notices a login from an unknown IP address," Alex said, he looked at her and his eyes were tired but they were sharp, and he waited for her to hand over the flash drive.
"Here, but be careful with the login, if Helena is as smart as she thinks she is, she has a kill switch that will wipe the drive if we fail the password more than twice," Sarah told him, she leaned over his shoulder to watch the lines of code begin to scroll across the screen, her hand resting on the back of his chair.
The three of them worked in a silence.
"The recovery is at forty percent, the files from the Veridian project are intact, and the zoning documents we found at the studio are being uploaded to the cloud right now," Mark said, his eyes never leaving the screen as the progress bar moved slowly across the blue background.
"Keep going, I want the internal communications from the night of the safe house lockdown, because if we can prove the server breach was a staged event, Helena is finished," Sarah said, she walked to the window and looked out at the fog, her fingers tapping a nervous beat against her leg.
"I’m digging into the hidden partitions now, there is a directory that doesn't have a label, it is tucked behind the system logs and it is taking up a lot of space for a text file," Alex said, his brow was furrowed as he typed in a final override command that he had memorized from his father's private terminal years ago.
"Is it the London file? The one Richard said she was hiding?" Mark asked, stepping closer to the desk to see what Alex had found.
"No, it’s not a document, it’s a media folder, and the timestamps are from three nights ago, the same night we were stuck in the bunker," Alex said, and his hand hesitated over the mouse as the folder finally clicked open to reveal a long list of audio files.
"Open the first one, let's hear what she was hiding while we were sitting in that basement thinking we were safe," Sarah said, she moved back to the table and stood between the two men, her heart starting to beat a little faster as the first file began to load.
Alex hit the play button, and the sound of static filled the quiet library for a second before a clear, sharp voice came through the speakers, and it wasn't a business call or a legal briefing. It was the sound of the safe house living room, and they could hear the clink of the coffee mugs and the low murmur of their own voices from the night they had spent talking about their future. Then, a second voice cut through the recording.
"They think the air is too thick to breathe in there, they think I’m doing this for their safety, but they are giving me everything I need to bury them both," Helena’s voice said, sounding so close it felt like she was standing in the library with them.
"Listen to the way Sarah talks to him, listen to the way she thinks she is winning, she has no idea that every word she says is being recorded for the board to hear tomorrow morning."
Sarah felt a chill go down her spine as she heard herself talking to Alex about the Vane name and the dignity of walking away, and then she heard Helena laugh, a dry, mean sound that made Mark’s jaw tighten until the muscles in his face stood out.
"She was listening the whole time, she wasn't just locking us out of the servers, she was sitting in her office listening to us talk about our lives like we were a radio show," Mark said, his voice was a low growl and he looked at the screen like he wanted to break it.
"She has it all, every confession, every plan we made, and every private thing we said to each other while we thought the world was shut out," Alex said, his voice was hollow and he looked at Sarah, his eyes full of a new, raw kind of violation.
The recording continued to play, and they heard the sound of the door thudding shut on the night they left the bunker, followed by Helena giving a command to a man they didn't recognize.
"Delete the access logs, but keep the audio, I want the part where Sarah admits she used the Vane money to start her firm, that is the only part the investors need to hear before we cast the vote," Helena said on the tape.
Sarah reached out and gripped the edge of the table. As the final server finished its boot sequence, a new window popped up on the monitor, showing a live feed from a camera they didn't know was active, and it was a view of the very library they were standing in right now.
"Alex, look at the corner of the screen," Sarah whispered, her hand pointing to a small, red light that was blinking on the fireplace mantle.