CHAPTER 6: The Office Below the Lobby

Ms. Carter closed the duffel and told the nearest teller to pause service without making an announcement.
Officer Brooks guided Noah behind the counter, away from the ropes and the eyes of customers who wanted a story they could repeat over dinner.
Downstairs, the old audit corridor smelled like dust, carpet glue, and machines left on too long.
Daniel’s office had been emptied after his disappearance, but not carefully. A coffee stain remained on the desk. A pushpin still held a torn corner of a school drawing to the corkboard.
Noah saw it and stopped.
“I made that,” he whispered.
Ms. Carter looked away for half a second, because kindness sometimes begins with giving a child privacy for pain.
The keycard did not open the door.
But Officer Brooks noticed the loose panel under the desk.
Behind it was a small metal box taped to the underside with black electrical tape.
Inside the box was another drive, one photograph, and a note with no signature.
The photograph showed Daniel standing beside Ms. Carter at a staff event years earlier, both younger, both unaware of the betrayal that would someday pass through their workplace like a cold draft.
Ms. Carter read the first line and went cold.
They will make the cash look like theft. It is not. It is bait.