Chapter 4: The Man Who Knew Every Number
Logan didn't sleep.
He sat at his kitchen table with the piece of paper in front of him and his phone face-down beside it.
The apartment felt different at three in the morning — smaller, the walls closer, every familiar object slightly wrong.
He made coffee he didn't drink.
He read the name again as if it might change.
It didn't.
Marcus Webb.
His business partner.
Co-founder.
The man who had built the accounting infrastructure of their company from the ground up, who knew every account number, every routing code, every authorization protocol.
The man who had stood beside Logan at his mother's funeral six years ago and said, *whatever you need, I'm here.*
Logan picked up his phone.
Put it down.
Picked it up again.
He called Marcus at 3:17 in the morning.
It rang four times.
Then: "Logan." No surprise in the voice.
No sleep either.
"You were awake," Logan said.
"I heard what happened tonight.
Are you all right?"
"No." Logan looked at the paper.
"I need to ask you something and I need you to answer me straight."
A pause.
Brief.
Controlled.
"Of course."
"The secondary accounts.
The transfers.
The shell routing."
Silence.
"Marcus."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
The answer came too fast.
Logan had known Marcus for six years and he knew the rhythm of the man's speech — the slight delay before he committed to anything, the way he gathered himself before a careful sentence.
This answer had no delay at all.
"My signature is on four transfer authorizations," Logan said.
"Eighteen months of draws.
My father found the printouts."
"Then someone set you up."
"Yes.
Someone did." Logan kept his voice flat.
"Someone who knew the accounts well enough to move that money invisibly.
Someone who had access to my signature on file.
Someone who understood exactly how to make it look clean on the official books."
"Logan, you can't be suggesting—"
"I'm not suggesting anything.
I'm telling you what the evidence looks like and asking you to tell me I'm wrong."
The silence this time was longer.
Logan could hear Marcus breathing.
Steady.
Deliberate.
"You should get some sleep," Marcus said finally.
"You've had a terrible night.
You're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking very clearly."
"Call me in the morning.
We'll sit down and—"
"My father packed a suitcase, Marcus." Logan's voice cracked on the name and he didn't try to stop it.
"He found those printouts and he packed a suitcase because he couldn't decide whether the person who betrayed him was his son or someone his son trusted.
He chose to leave quietly rather than destroy either of us.
And tonight, while he was trying to leave with whatever dignity he had left, I put Cara through a glass table thinking I was protecting him."
Nothing from the other end.
"He walked out of that elevator and I don't know where he is.
Garrett won't tell me.
And I am sitting here at three in the morning looking at a piece of paper with your name on it in my father's handwriting."
A long pause.
Then Marcus said: "You should be careful about accusations you can't prove."
The warmth was gone.
Completely.
As if a switch had been thrown.
"Is that a warning?" Logan asked.
"It's advice."
"It sounds like a warning."
"Get some sleep, Logan." The line went dead.
Logan set the phone down on the table.
He stared at it for a moment.
Then he opened his laptop and pulled up the company's shared document portal — the one he still had access to, the one Marcus had built, the one that held five years of financial records.
His access credentials failed on the first try.
He tried again.
*Invalid credentials.
Please contact your system administrator.*
He had been locked out.
Sometime in the last hour, while they were on the phone, someone had revoked his access.
Logan closed the laptop slowly.
May you like
Marcus hadn't just known.
Marcus had been ready.
