Chapter 5
The Newark warehouse had suffered a serious accident fourteen months earlier.
A loading platform collapsed during an overnight shift.
Five workers were injured.
One, a thirty-two-year-old father named Matthew Doyle, suffered permanent spinal damage.
Barrone Maritime settled the worker-compensation claims and paid additional private settlements.
Lucius remembered the incident.
He had been told an outside engineering failure caused it.
The building was repaired.
The matter was supposedly closed.
Now Lucius ordered the full file reconstructed.
The first discrepancy appeared immediately.
An engineering firm had inspected the loading structure six weeks before the collapse.
The final report in Barrone Maritime’s archive rated the platform safe.
But the engineering firm’s own internal index showed two reports.
Version A.
Version B.
Barrone Maritime possessed only B.
Version A was missing.
Lucius called the engineering company.
Their attorney responded instead.
Version A had contained preliminary concerns.
Several steel supports showed fatigue.
The engineer recommended restricting heavy loads until additional testing could be completed.
Version B, issued later, removed the warning after someone supplied updated maintenance documentation.
“Someone from my company?” Lucius asked.
The attorney would not answer without formal process.
Lucius’s own lawyer advised patience.
Lucius had very little.
Then Daniel found another connection.
The night before Lucius’s crash, he had received an unopened courier package at his downtown office.
His assistant remembered placing it on his desk.
When Lucius returned six days later, the package was gone.
Sender:
The same engineering firm.
Lucius stared at Daniel.
“Who entered the office after I disappeared?”
“Three people.”
“Names.”
“Selene.”
Lucius said nothing.
“Tristan.”
Still nothing.
“And Selene’s private attorney.”
Lucius looked toward the window.
The warehouse sale.
The missing engineering files.
The twenty-one-day authority.
May you like
Someone had been in a hurry to make one property disappear from the Barrone portfolio.
And his wife had been inside his office before the evidence reached him.
