Chapter 7 - WHAT PIKE KNEW.
Jonathan Pike asked for a lawyer before he named anyone.
That made the television commentators furious.
Amelia understood.
Rights were rights even when the person using them scared you.
Pike’s attorney negotiated a voluntary interview the next afternoon.
Charles was not allowed inside.
Neither was Amelia.
They waited across town in Ruiz’s office, watching rain streak the window while the government decided how much they could legally share.
Charles paced.
Amelia sat.
“You’re making me nervous.”
“I am nervous.”
“You usually hide it better.”
“I usually have information.”
That was Charles’s weakness.
He could tolerate bad news better than uncertainty.
Amelia had inherited the same problem.
Two hours later Ruiz entered.
“Pike says his executive account was accessed from a Whitmore Capital conference room the night of the assault.”
“Who had access?”
“Several senior employees.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer we have.”
Pike claimed he had been invited to Blackthorn because Adrian wanted informal support for the Voss partnership.
Pike declined after learning Amy would be present.
That sentence bothered Amelia.
“Why would my being there matter?”
Ruiz checked his notes.
“He says Adrian had complained about you.”
“As Amy?”
“Yes.”
“What did Adrian say?”
“That you were interfering with payroll records and asking employees questions.”
Charles muttered something under his breath.
“Pike says he warned Adrian not to do anything reckless.”
Amelia laughed once.
“That sounds heroic.”
“Pike isn’t presenting himself as heroic.”
Good.
Ruiz continued.
Pike admitted he knew Amelia had gone undercover.
He also knew Adrian was becoming suspicious of Amy.
He did not tell her.
That mattered.
“Why?” Amelia asked.
“Because he wanted the Voss partnership completed.”
There it was.
Not hatred.
Not a secret vendetta.
Money.
The transaction was valued at $1.8 billion.
Pike believed Amelia’s investigation was creating unnecessary risk.
He expected her to gather enough information for internal compliance review and leave.
Instead she started building relationships with workers.
She became emotionally invested.
She challenged Adrian openly.
Pike saw that as mission drift.
“So he let me stay in danger because a deal mattered more?”
Ruiz chose his words carefully.
“That is an interpretation. Pike admits he failed to warn you. He denies anticipating physical violence.”
Amelia nodded.
Fact.
Interpretation.
Keep them separate.
“What about KEEP GOING?”
Pike claimed someone used his conference room computer after he left a board dinner.
The access logs supported the possibility.
He named one person who knew both his password protocol and Amelia’s undercover identity.
Leonard Shaw.
The board member who had called the assault a private family tragedy.
Charles stopped pacing.
“Leonard?”
Pike’s explanation was ugly but logical.
Shaw chaired Whitmore Capital’s risk committee.
He also stood to receive a large performance bonus if the Voss acquisition closed that quarter.
Amy Reed had become a problem.
Not because Shaw wanted her beaten.
Pike insisted on that distinction.
According to him, Shaw had repeatedly pushed for Amelia to be pulled from the undercover operation.
Charles refused because Amelia would not agree.
Then Shaw allegedly began communicating indirectly with Voss executives about managing “the disruption.”
No one yet knew whether that meant public relations pressure, termination of Amy’s access, or something worse.
The KEEP GOING message could change everything.
If Shaw sent it knowing Amelia was being beaten, the legal stakes rose dramatically.
If someone else used the account, he might only be guilty of terrible judgment.
Charles looked physically sick.
Leonard Shaw had attended Amelia’s college graduation.
He had sent flowers when her mother died.
Money didn’t just divide classes.
Sometimes it taught people to place numbers above faces they genuinely knew.
Agent Ruiz’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
Then frowned.
“What?”
Ruiz looked at Amelia.
“Search team is at Shaw’s apartment.”
“And?”
“He’s not there.”
Charles closed his eyes.
Not again.
Amelia stood.
“Do we know when he left?”
Ruiz checked the screen.
“Building cameras show him leaving at five sixteen this morning.”
“With luggage?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“Found in the apartment.”
“Car?”
“Still in the garage.”
Charles looked at Ruiz.
“So where did he go?”
The answer came twenty minutes later.
A security camera three blocks away caught Shaw entering a black SUV.
The vehicle was registered to Voss Family Holdings.
Adrian was under court supervision.
Evelyn Voss was not.
And at 8:42 that evening, for the first time in nearly a year, Amelia received a text on the burner phone she had used as Amy Reed.
Unknown number.
YOU WANTED TO KNOW HOW THE VOSS FAMILY TREATS PEOPLE WITHOUT POWER.
NOW YOU KNOW.
May you like
A second message appeared.
STOP DIGGING BEFORE YOUR FATHER LEARNS WHAT HIS MONEY PAID FOR.
