Chapter 16
For the first time, I wondered whether Nathan had been her partner or simply one more person she thought she could use.
It didn’t absolve him.
Nothing could.
But the distinction mattered because people who use others usually keep records of it.
I asked Evan whether he could identify where the backup drive had been connected.
“If it went online?”
“It wasn’t designed to.”
“But the files copied from it might leave traces.”
He nodded slowly.
“We can look.”
Three days later, he found one.
A unique metadata string from an archived proposal on that drive appeared inside a Northline draft document recovered through discovery from Rowe & Vale’s investigation.
The document listed future target clients.
Six were mine.
Three were Rowe & Vale’s.
Two belonged to completely different firms.
Brynn had not been building a competitor to Whitmore Studio.
She had been building a company by stealing from everyone.
Then came the line that changed my understanding of Nathan.
Near the bottom of the document was a section titled “Transition Resources.”
Employees.
Clients.
Vendors.
Capital.
Beside Nathan’s name were four words.
“Temporary finance/access support.”
Temporary.
I read it again.
Brynn had never planned to build Northline with Nathan.
She planned to use him.
He gave her my codes, my backup drive, access to my office, financial knowledge, and probably information about our marriage.
In return, she gave him an affair and the illusion of a future.
Once the company launched, he was apparently disposable.
Dana studied the document.
“Do you want him to see this?”
I thought about it.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he should understand what he traded everything for.”
She sent it to his attorney as part of the discovery exchange.
Nathan called me that evening.
I answered.
His voice sounded different.
Not angry.
Empty.
“You knew?”
“Knew what?”
“What she wrote about me.”
“Yes.”
“Temporary access support.”
“Yes.”
He was silent for nearly ten seconds.
“She told me we were going to run it together.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“You knew she was using me.”
“I learned today.”
He breathed slowly.
Then he asked a question that almost made me sad.
“Did she ever love me?”
Six months earlier, that question would have destroyed me.
Now it sounded almost childish.
“You’ll have to ask Brynn.”
“She won’t answer.”
“That’s no longer my problem.”
“Laurel.”
I almost ended the call.
Then he said, “There’s something you don’t know.”
I waited.
“She has another drive.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What drive?”
“The one from your office wasn’t the only one.”
Nathan told me that three months earlier Brynn had asked him whether I kept an offline archive of company contracts.
I did.
In a locked cabinet inside our Richmond office.
Nathan claimed he refused to help her access it.
“Why?”
“Because by then I realized this was getting bigger.”
“You realized that after giving her everything else?”
“I know how that sounds.”
“Do you?”
He ignored it.
“Brynn went to Richmond anyway.”
“When?”
“The weekend you were in Boston.”
My thoughts moved quickly.
That was seven weeks earlier.
I had attended an industry conference.
Brynn had texted me repeatedly that weekend.
Photos from what she claimed was a girls’ trip at Lake Norman.
I still had them.
“Was Caleb with her?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did she get into my Richmond office?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know she went?”
“Because she called me from outside the building.”
“Why?”
“She needed an alarm code.”
I closed my eyes.
“Did you give it to her?”
“No.”
May you like
I almost laughed.
Finally, a boundary.
