Chapter 2 - Under the Walnut Desk
By 9:30 PM, the executive floor of the Summit Tower was draped in absolute silence. The floor-to-ceiling glass walls reflected only the red warning beacons of nearby skyscrapers through the light rain tapping against the windows.
Emily pushed her trash bin along the silent carpeted hallway toward the reception atrium. Her body ached with a dull, relentless throb that radiated from her lower back down to her calves.
As she rounded the corner toward the main reception counter, she saw a faint yellow light glowing behind the frosted glass pane of the corner desk.
Sitting behind the computer screen was Megan Brooks, Blake’s executive secretary. Megan was twenty-five, fresh out of Columbia Law, and usually impeccably composed. Tonight, however, her posture was slumped, her head buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent, desperate sobs.
Emily stopped her cart. Over the past month, she had noticed Megan looking at her with an odd, terrified intensity whenever Blake was out of the office.
"I’m just going to empty the trash cans, Megan," Emily murmured softly, keeping her voice low so as not to startle the girl.
Megan snapped her head up. Her face was deathly pale, her mascara smeared in long dark tracks down her cheeks. She looked at Emily, then darted her eyes frantically toward the private double doors leading into Blake’s personal suite.
"Mrs. Emily..." Megan whispered, her voice trembling so violently she could barely articulate the syllables. "What are you still doing on this floor?"
"My shift ends at ten," Emily said, stepping closer and dropping a clean paper towel onto the desk. "Are you alright? Is Blake pushing you again?"
Megan didn't take the towel. Instead, she reached across the marble counter, her cold, damp fingers clamping onto Emily’s forearm with terrifying strength.
"You need to leave," Megan whispered, her eyes wide with unadulterated panic. "No... wait. You can't leave. The security guards down in the lobby are checking bags."
"What are you talking about?" Emily frowned, trying to pull her arm back gently.
"He’s in the private study with Howard Bennett," Megan gasped, leaning over the counter until her face was inches from Emily’s. "They brought the off-shore ledgers. Mrs. Emily, please listen to me. If they see you out here, you will never leave this building."
Before Emily could process the girl's words, the heavy electronic lock on Blake’s private office door chimed with a crisp, double-beep sound. Heavy footsteps echoed against the hardwood floor inside.
Megan’s face lost whatever tiny thread of color it had left. She pulled Emily around the side of the reception desk with frantic, desperate energy.
"Hide under the desk. Now!" Megan hissed.
"Megan, this is absurd, I'm just an employee—"
"Hide!" Megan shoved Emily down by her shoulders. "He’s having a secret meeting! You need to hear this, or you are going to spend the rest of your life in a federal penitentiary!"
The urgency in Megan’s voice hit Emily like a bucket of ice water. She dropped her cleaning spray, ducked beneath the heavy mahogany kneehole of the reception desk, and pulled her knees tight against her chest.
Megan slid her leather office chair flush against the desk opening, concealing Emily entirely in the dark shadow beneath the counter.
A second later, the heavy oak doors swung open.
Blake stepped out into the reception area, followed by Howard Bennett—a sharp-featured, fifty-year-old notary and corporate lawyer who had been disbarred five years earlier following a real estate fraud investigation, and who was supposed to have severed all ties with Summit Development.
"Is the elevator locked to this floor, Megan?" Blake asked, his tone cold, crisp, and completely businesslike.
"Yes, Mr. Mercer," Megan said, her voice shaking slightly despite her obvious effort to control it. "The keycards are disabled until seven tomorrow morning."
"Good," Blake said, walking over to the reception counter. He stood so close to the desk that Emily could see the edge of his polished black loafers through the thin crack between the drawer cabinet and Megan’s chair.
"Is everything ready, Howard?" Blake asked.
Howard Bennett unbuttoned his trench coat and laid a thick leather folder on top of the reception counter, directly above Emily’s head.
"The company registration documents, banking authorizations, cross-border loan contracts, and appointment of the sole managing administrator," Howard replied, his rasping voice carrying clearly through the thin wood. "We just need to confirm the signature match."
Blake let out a short, quiet laugh that sent a cold shudder down Emily’s spine.
"The match is perfect," Blake said smoothly. "I’ve spent four months practicing Emily's signature. I can sign her name faster than she can."
Under the desk, Emily felt the air leave her lungs. Her fingers dug into the fabric of her grey janitorial trousers until her nails bit into her skin.
Howard flipped through several heavy bond paper pages. "So officially, on paper, Emily Carter founded Apex Works LLC three years ago. She used her position as COO of Summit to divert twenty-eight million dollars from municipal housing grants into offshore accounts in Saint Kitts."
"Exactly," Blake said.
"And what if her defense council requests a forensic handwriting expert?" Howard asked.
Blake gently tapped his knuckles against the mahogany desk.
"Who is going to believe her, Howard?" Blake murmured, his voice dripping with smooth, calculated satisfaction. "Look where she works now. I personally arranged for CleanCorp to place her on this specific floor. For two months, she has touched the filing cabinets in my office. She touched the safe in the document room. She cleaned the brass handles on the master ledger boxes. Her fingerprints are smeared across every piece of physical evidence in this building."
Emily had to slap both hands over her mouth to keep from releasing a blood-curdling scream.
The dark truth hit her like a sledgehammer to the chest.
Blake had never hired her out of cruelty. He had never put her in a janitorial uniform to break her spirit or watch her squirm.
He had placed her on the sixty-floor cleaning crew to construct a physical crime scene. Every morning when she wiped down his office, every evening when she emptied his shredder bins, she was depositing her sweat, her skin cells, and her fingerprints onto the very legal vaults where he had stashed twenty-eight million dollars of stolen public money.
"Besides," Blake added casually, pulling out his cell phone, "tonight I’m transferring two and a half million dollars from the Saint Kitts account directly into her personal checking account in Astoria. When the federal prosecutors review her records tomorrow morning, it will look like her personal cash payout from the scheme."
"Brilliant," Howard Bennett whispered. "Absolutly brilliant."
Blake tapped his phone screen, setting it to speaker mode as he dialed a three-digit emergency number.
"New York Police Department," a dispatcher’s voice echoed into the quiet atrium. "What is your emergency?"
"I want to report a grand larceny in progress," Blake said, his voice instantly transforming into a masterclass of frantic, highly distressed executive concern. "This is Blake Mercer, CEO of Summit Development. I just caught a member of our night janitorial staff breaking into our secure filing vault on the sixty floor. She’s stealing confidential corporate ledgers. Her name is Emily Carter... and she’s still inside the building."
"Units are dispatched, Mr. Mercer," the dispatcher replied. "Hold your position. Officers are four minutes out."
Blake hung up the phone, stepped back from the counter, and adjusted his cuffs.
"They'll be here in five minutes," he murmured to Howard. "Let's go down to the security booth to meet them."
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As their footsteps faded down the long marble corridor toward the emergency stairwell, Emily remained curled under the desk, staring at her raw, bleached-stained hands in the pitch darkness.
Outside, rising from the concrete canyons of Midtown, the first high-pitched wail of police sirens began to echo through the night.
