Chapter 13: Black Tuesday

I slid the chain off the door.

Behind me Jonas had not moved, and I could feel him not moving.

Yvette Vandermeer walked in.

She sat on the desk chair and set her phone on the table between us.

"Thirty seconds," she said. "Then you decide what I am."

She pressed play.

A man's voice came out of the small speaker, calm and warm and fatherly.

"He sends it at midnight, Yvette. To a reporter and to a federal office. You will be on that roof before he does."

"He trusts me," said Yvette's voice, very small.

"That is why it has to be you. He wouldn't believe it of anyone else. Tonight, and no mess."

The recording clicked off.

Nobody in the room breathed.

"That's Palmer," Jonas said. His voice was flat and far away.

"I stood in the stairwell for ten minutes before I opened the door," Yvette said.

"I want you to know that. I know it's worth nothing."

"It's worth nothing," I said.

"Yes."

She did not flinch, and she did not cry, and I hated that I believed her a little.

She took a folded napkin from her pocket and pushed it across the table.

A string of letters and numbers was written on it in blue pen.

"Palmer keeps the original of everything in a server room under Meridian. He calls it the archive."

"That is a login token. It works until someone notices I used it."

"It opens the folder for October of 2022."

She looked at Jonas.

"He told me you would never be able to look at it."

"Get out, Yvette," Jonas said quietly.

"I'm going. Palmer's men will be at the front desk within the hour."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Cyberking Reclaims His Throne from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.