The next forty-eight hours were no longer only an operations review. Counsel prepared a preservation notice, finance began tracing contracts beyond the regional division, and Victoria contacted the independent board chair about restricting Richard's access while the facts were assessed. Daniel continued his normal operations work in the mornings, because the company's drivers and warehouse employees could not stop their lives while executives investigated an old betrayal. Each night he returned to the same question: where did the freight actually go?
A retired records manager finally supplied the name of the place most likely to contain the answer. Years earlier, after a dispute about electronic signatures, Henry Grant had required certain high-value authorizations to be stored in paper form at a leased archive warehouse outside the city. Most current executives had forgotten the arrangement existed. Marcus Reed remembered because he had once delivered sealed file boxes there after a regulatory audit.
"You want the old originals?" Marcus asked. "That's where they went. I'd call before driving. They aren't used to seeing people from headquarters."
Daniel wrote down the address. He was beginning to suspect that someone had counted on that fact: the documents most likely to expose the truth had been placed somewhere nobody with a dashboard ever needed to visit. He showed Victoria the address, and she said she would go with him.
For a moment he considered arguing that it was unnecessary. Then he thought of the note on the back of Henry's photograph. Trust the person who notices what everyone else ignores. Whatever they found at that warehouse would belong to Victoria's family history as much as to the company's legal records.
He nodded and suggested they bring written authorization and notify counsel before they went. At 6:20 the following morning, Daniel turned into the gravel driveway of the archive warehouse and found the gate still locked. The building occupied a low stretch of industrial land behind a former printing plant, far enough from headquarters that its existence seemed almost an inconvenience. Rain had collected in the potholes, and weeds pushed through seams in the concrete. Above the entrance, a faded sign identified it only as Grant Records Storage, a relic from the company's smaller years.
Victoria arrived five minutes later driving her own car. She wore a dark sweater beneath a practical coat instead of her usual tailored suit. Daniel noticed that she had brought coffee for two, and the gesture surprised him because she had spent months interacting with employees through assistants who remembered small details on her behalf.
"I wasn't sure what you drink," she said, handing him a paper cup.
"Whatever is hot and contains caffeine."
"That narrows it down." She looked at the locked gate. "I used to come here with my father. He kept the oldest contracts because he said software could lose a record, but it couldn't make a signature disappear from paper."
A caretaker named Mr. Lawson opened the gate after examining their identification and the authorization from company counsel. He was a narrow, careful man who spoke little until Victoria mentioned Henry. Then his expression softened.