Chapter 6 - THE PASSWORD HE STOLE
The request was for $48,000.
My personal investment account required two-step verification.
The withdrawal had failed.
But someone had entered the correct password.
I looked at Daniel.
He did not look confused.
That was enough.
“When did you try it?”
He shook his head.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mark pointed at the screen.
“The login came from the hotel network.”
Several heads turned.
Daniel’s phone was lying beside his plate.
I reached for mine and called the financial institution.
The representative placed an immediate freeze on the account.
Daniel watched without speaking.
When I ended the call, I asked him the only question that mattered.
“How did you get my password?”
He looked around at the audience we had collected.
Then at me.
“You’re accusing me based on an IP address?”
“No.”
I opened the final section of the folder.
“I’m accusing you because three weeks ago I put a false password in a notebook inside my home desk.”
His eyes changed.
I continued.
“The real password was changed months ago.”
Patricia frowned.
“Then how did someone enter the correct one?”
I looked at Daniel.
“Because the notebook also contained instructions telling me where I had stored the updated password.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
It had been a trap.
Not an illegal one.
Not even a complicated one.
After discovering him entering my office twice through the baby monitor, I created a document on my private laptop called Investment Recovery Codes.
There were no real recovery codes inside.
Only a unique phrase I had never used anywhere else.
When the attempted login appeared, that unique phrase had been entered.
Daniel had copied it.
He stood.
“I’m leaving.”
I stepped aside.
“I’m not stopping you.”
He looked surprised.
I think he expected me to beg.
Or threaten him.
Or make a theatrical attempt to block the door.
Instead, I simply watched.
He grabbed his phone and jacket.
Patricia rose too.
“Daniel, you need to explain this.”
“Not here.”
Robert said, “You’re not walking away.”
Daniel turned.
“I’m thirty-six years old, Dad.”
“Yes.”
Robert’s voice was quiet.
“And somehow tonight you’ve managed to make me ashamed of every year.”
Daniel flinched.
That was the first thing anyone had said that truly reached him.
But only for a second.
Then he looked at me.
“You think this is over because you embarrassed me?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“I think this started four months ago when I hired an attorney.”
His eyes widened.
I took a white envelope from beneath the folder.
“You’ll find out the rest tomorrow morning.”
He stared at it.
“What is that?”
May you like
“My petition for divorce.”
For the first time all evening, the silence belonged entirely to him.
