Chapter 5 - The Web Unravels"Rachel, get the flash drive," I said, keeping my voice low and steady as Arthur continued to pound against the reinforced oak door.
"Clara, he's going to call security!" Rachel warned, plugging a secondary thumb drive into my laptop to mirror the encrypted files.
"Let him," I said. "Security answers to the city, and Detective Reed is already on his way."
I stepped toward the door, unlocked it, and pulled it wide.
Arthur Pendelton stood in the doorway, his face purple with anger, surrounded by two uniformed building security guards. Arthur was a silver-haired titan of Baltimore real estate, a man whose name was plastered on hospital wings and university libraries.
"What do you think you are doing, young lady?" Arthur demanded, stepping into the office. "Daniel is currently being held on groundless allegations, and you are ransacking a charitable organization's confidential records. I demand you step away from that computer!"
"Groundless?" I repeated, stepping directly into his path. I reached into my trench coat, pulled out a printout of the file I had just opened, and held it out to him.
It was a copy of a signed non-disclosure agreement from three years ago, accompanied by a police incident report involving Arthur’s own son—a report that had mysteriously vanished from the precinct database forty-eight hours after it was filed.
Arthur’s face drained of color instantly. The rage evaporated from his eyes, replaced by a cold, calculating terror.
"Daniel built this place as a shield," I said, my voice echoing off the glass walls of the office. "Not for the women who needed help, but for men like you. And he used me to keep his hands looking clean."
"Clara..." Arthur stammered, his hands visibly shaking as he looked at the document. "You don't understand how deep this goes. You don't know what you're stirring up."
"I know exactly what I'm doing," I replied as heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.
Detective Reed stepped into the room, accompanied by two federal agents in dark suits.
"Arthur Pendelton?" the lead federal agent said, producing a badge. "FBI Financial Crimes Division. We have a warrant for the seizure of all Mercer House servers and financial records."
As the agents moved past him to secure the computer, Arthur looked at me, his eyes wide with a mix of shock and realization.
I walked past him toward the doorway, holding the master flash drive securely in my palm. For five years, Daniel Mercer had told me that no one would believe me over him.
He had been wrong. They didn't need to believe my words anymore. The paper trail spoke for itself, and this was only the beginning.
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