Chapter 14
“Maybe.”
Then he looked at me.
“But Madison Brooks has never been employed by Mitchell Medical Technologies.”
That evening, we learned there was another M. Brooks.
Michael Brooks.
Former director of research documentation.
Retired three years earlier.
And, according to the personnel file, no relation to Madison at all.
Michael agreed to meet us the next morning at a coffee shop near the river.
He was sixty-eight, with large glasses and the anxious manner of someone who had spent a career caring more about records than people.
When Daniel showed him the archive authorization, Michael nodded.
“Yes. I created it.”
“On whose instructions?”
Michael hesitated.
“Mrs. Mitchell's.”
I almost laughed.
“I never asked you to create an archive.”
“Not you.”
He looked embarrassed.
“Jason's mother.”
I stopped.
“Margaret?”
“Yes.”
Margaret Mitchell had died eighteen months earlier.
She and I had never been especially close, but she had always treated me with careful courtesy.
She had also adored her sons.
Michael wrapped both hands around his coffee.
“Mrs. Mitchell came to me about five years ago. She had a collection of old research papers. She said they belonged to the family and needed to be preserved separately from corporate records.”
“Why did you accept that?”
“She was chair of the family trust.”
Daniel asked, “Did Jason know?”
“I assumed so.”
“Did she tell you where the documents came from?”
“No.”
“Did anyone access them later?”
Michael nodded.
“The Meridian engineering team.”
“Who authorized that?”
He looked confused.
“The system indicates I did.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Another silence.
Daniel leaned back.
“Someone used your credentials.”
Michael's face went pale.
“I suppose they did.”
I thought of Margaret.
Elegant, private Margaret, who sent handwritten thank-you cards after every Christmas dinner and never discussed business unless someone else brought it up first.
Why had she possessed my research?
And why had she secretly preserved it?
Two days later, Ethan called.
His voice was strained.
“I found something at Mom's house.”
Margaret's belongings had remained mostly untouched while the brothers argued about selling the property.
Ethan had gone there after hearing about Archive 7.
In her desk, behind old tax records, he found a sealed envelope.
My name was written on the front.
IRIS — PERSONAL
I drove there alone.
The Mitchell family home stood beneath tall maple trees just outside the city.
Ethan waited on the porch.
He handed me the envelope without opening it.