Chapter 3 - The Thing Ethan Knew

The police moved Ethan and Elena to a protected residence before sunset.

Ethan hated it.

“No windows open.”

“That is usually how secure houses work,” Elena said.

“No backyard.”

“There is a backyard.”

“With two officers in it.”

“They are not decorative.”

He frowned.

Elena had not slept.

Freedom had lasted exactly four hours before fear replaced relief.

Someone had tried to poison Ethan.

Not Adrian.

Ethan.

She kept seeing the tea cup.

The one Adrian had taken from the kitchen counter.

The cup he drank while working.

The cup she had washed once, filled once, and touched a dozen times before it became evidence against her.

“Why me?” Ethan asked.

Elena looked at him.

“What?”

“Why would somebody try to kill me?”

She sat across from him.

“We don’t know.”

“Dad said I have something.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“We don’t know.”

“He said I don’t know.”

“I heard.”

Ethan opened Adrian’s notebook again.

The investigators had photographed every page but allowed him to keep the original under supervision.

He traced the numbers.

“Seven, nineteen, four.”

“The safe.”

“Maybe not only the safe.”

Elena frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Dad liked codes.”

“I know.”

“He used my birthday for bad passwords.”

“Your birthday is not seven-nineteen-four.”

“No.”

“What is it?”

“April nineteen.”

Elena looked at him.

“Four-nineteen.”

“Seven is my age.”

She stared.

“Seven. Nineteen. Four.”

“Me. Day. Month.”

“That’s not a code.”

“Dad thought it was.”

She smiled despite the tension.

“Your father built cybersecurity software and used his son’s age and birthday.”

“Maybe that’s why people hacked him.”

She laughed.

Ethan smiled for the first time all day.

Then his smile vanished.

“What did he give me?”

They searched memory, not objects.

Adrian had bought Ethan toys, books, a watch, a tablet, a telescope, and a model train set.

Nothing seemed unusual.

Then Elena remembered the coin.

“Your birthday coin.”

Ethan frowned.

“What coin?”

“The silver one your dad gave you last year.”

“Oh.”

“Where is it?”

“At home.”

The police retrieved it.

A heavy silver dollar in a clear plastic case.

Adrian had told Ethan it was “for luck.”

Priya Shah examined the case.

The rim opened.

Inside was a microSD card.

Ethan stared.

“That’s cheating.”

Elena blinked.

“What?”

“He said it was a coin.”

Priya smiled.

“It is a coin. Also a data container.”

The card held one folder.

KEYSTONE.

Inside were fragments of encrypted code.

Not documents.

Not money.

Code.

A federal cyber analyst named Malik Chen reviewed it.

“This is the root certificate.”

Elena frowned.

“In normal language.”

“It can authenticate access to Lantern.”

“Can it control it?”

“More than control it.”

He looked at Ethan.

“It can shut the entire network down.”

Ethan stared.

“My coin can turn it off?”

“Yes.”

“Then turn it off.”

Malik hesitated.

“It may also erase evidence.”

“Don’t do that.”

“We won’t.”

The data revealed something else.

Lantern still had active nodes.

Thousands.

Victim systems remained compromised.

Someone was still running the network after Adrian’s death.

Victoria was in federal custody.

Marcus was cooperating.

Reed was jailed.

So who?

Malik pointed to an administrator ID.

ORPHEUS.

“Who is that?” Elena asked.

“We don’t know.”

Marcus claimed he had never seen the ID.

Victoria refused to speak.

Reed’s lawyer denied everything.

Then Ethan said:

“Orpheus was Dad.”

Everyone turned.

Elena stared.

“What?”

“He used that name.”

“When?”

“In a game.”

Malik leaned forward.

“What game?”

“Chess online.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Elena felt sick.

“Adrian was Orpheus?”

Ethan nodded.

“His username had numbers.”

“What numbers?”

Ethan thought.

“071904.”

Silence.

Seven.

Nineteen.

Four.

Malik looked at Elena.

“This administrator ID uses the same six-digit token.”

Elena whispered, “Adrian was still controlling Lantern.”

The public story suddenly looked less false.

Adrian had not merely created the system.

He had retained ultimate access.

That did not prove he ran the blackmail.

But it made the truth messier.

Ethan’s face crumpled.

“Dad was bad.”

Elena moved closer.

“We don’t know everything.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“He lied.”

“Yes.”

“You said he made mistakes.”

“Yes.”

“What if they’re not mistakes?”

Elena did not answer immediately.

“Then we call them what they are.”

Ethan stared at her.

“Bad choices?”

“Maybe crimes.”

His eyes filled.

“You can say that about Dad?”

“I can love someone and still tell the truth about them.”

He looked away.

“Did you love him?”

The question caught her.

Elena swallowed.

“Yes.”

“As a boyfriend?”

“No.”

“As family?”

“Yes.”

Ethan nodded slowly.

“Me too.”

Malik cleared his throat.

“There is another file.”

Everyone looked at him.

“Hidden under the root certificate.”

He opened it.

A schedule.

Payment transfers.

Blackmail releases.

And a future event.

One entry was dated for the next morning.

TARGET: STATE CHILD PROTECTION DATABASE.

OBJECTIVE: LEVERAGE.

AUTHORIZED: ORPHEUS.

Elena stood.

“No.”

Malik’s face was grim.

“If this is genuine, someone plans to breach child protection records tomorrow.”

“Using Adrian’s credentials.”

“Yes.”

“Can we stop it?”

“With Keystone.”

Ethan gripped the coin.

“Then do it.”

Malik shook his head.

“We need to identify the active controller first.”

“Why?”

“Because shutting Lantern down warns them.”

Ethan looked at Elena.

“That sounds like a grown-up excuse.”

Malik almost smiled.

“It is.”

“Is it a good one?”

“Yes.”

That night, Ethan could not sleep.

Elena sat beside him.

“Tell me about your dad,” she said.

“You knew him.”

“Not all of him.”

Ethan thought.

“He hated bananas.”

“I knew that.”

“He pretended he liked my violin.”

“He absolutely did not.”

“He said I could tell because his left eyebrow moved.”

Elena smiled.

“That is true.”

“He was scared of hospitals.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“He said machines make lies look official.”

Elena looked at him.

“What?”

“He said that after Mom died.”

Elena froze.

Ethan’s mother, Laura, had died four years earlier from a sudden cardiac condition.

Adrian rarely spoke about it.

“What exactly did he say?”

Ethan yawned.

“That machines make lies look official.”

“Did he say someone lied about your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“Elena?”

The child was nearly asleep.

“Hmm?”

“Did Dad build Lantern before Mom died?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe that’s why.”

“What?”

“Maybe Mom found it too.”

Elena went still.

Laura Mercer had been a systems auditor.

She had worked at the company before Ethan was born.

She had died at thirty-three.

Natural causes.

No investigation.

Elena stood slowly.

The child opened his eyes.

“Where are you going?”

“To call Paul.”

“At midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Grown-ups are weird.”

She kissed his forehead.

“You have no idea.”

Paul answered on the fourth ring.

“Elena?”

“Get Laura Mercer’s medical records.”

Silence.

“Why?”

“Because Adrian said the poison wasn’t meant for him.”

“Yes.”

“And Ethan remembered something Adrian said after Laura died.”

“What?”

“Machines make lies look official.”

Paul’s voice changed.

“You think Laura’s death connects to Lantern.”

“I think Adrian spent four years building emergency evidence because he didn’t trust anyone.”

She looked at Ethan sleeping.

“And I think this started long before Elena Ruiz became an easy person to blame.”

Before Elena called Paul, she sat in the hallway outside Ethan’s room and tried to separate fear from memory.

Laura had died four years ago, but Elena remembered the week clearly because Adrian had stopped sleeping.

He worked through nights.

He stopped answering friends.

He refused to let anyone clean Laura’s office.

One morning Elena had found him standing there with a hard drive in his hand.

“What is that?” she had asked.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been holding nothing for ten minutes?”

Adrian had looked at her then.

Not angry.

Cornered.

“If I tell you something, you become responsible for knowing it.”

Elena had laughed.

“That is how information works.”

He had not laughed back.

Now the memory felt different.

She had assumed grief made him strange.

Perhaps guilt had.

Perhaps fear had.

Perhaps both.

Paul answered again when she called with the additional memory.

“So Adrian had a drive after Laura died?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever see it again?”

“No.”

“Describe it.”

“Black. Small. Red strip.”

Paul went quiet.

“Elena.”

“What?”

“The drive Ethan brought to court has a red strip.”

She closed her eyes.

“Then it may have belonged to Laura first.”

“Or Adrian copied her evidence onto it.”

“Either way, the flash drive didn’t begin with his murder.”

“No.”

Elena looked toward Ethan’s bedroom.

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The whole case had started with a dead man’s warning.

Now it was beginning to look like a dead woman had been warning them first.