He Came Back Running (Maya and Mason) novel Chapter 256

Chapter 256

Alex’s POV

“The investigations have no defined conclusion date,” one of our lawyers who came around said. “Regulatory processes at this level rarely do. The forensic credential audit is in the record…. and Reeves’s documentation is significant, it will matter when the time comes – but the when is not within anyone’s control at this stage.” He looked at us both. “Based on what I’m looking at, the realistic timeline is several months. Possibly longer.”

I looked at the table.

“The properties,” I said.

“Several of them may remain under review for the duration,” he said. “Not seized… reviewed. The distinction is legally meaningful but practically similar in terms of access. The house specifically….” He paused. “It’s within the scope of the current asset review. Continuing to occupy it while the review is active creates a procedural position that I’d recommend against.”

“You’re suggesting we leave,” Maya said.

“I’m suggesting you relocate,” he said. “Temporarily. To somewhere that sits outside the scope of the current review and the media. It doesn’t need to be dramatic… it needs to be somewhere that isn’t this address for the period of the investigation.”

Maya looked at me

I looked around the kitchen.

“How long do we have?” I said.

“I’d suggest sooner rather than later,” he said. “The asset review documentation was filed this afternoon. The longer the address appears in the daily press as your operating base, the more public the departure will be when it happens.”

“Tonight,” Maya said.

Harrington one of our lawyer looked at her.

“If that’s manageable,” he said

She looked at me.

“Tonight,” she said again.

Not a question

Harrington left at eight.

We stood in the kitchen.

The house around us

“What do we take?” I said.

Maya looked at the kitchen.

At the corridor.

+15 ALS

At the stairs

What matters,” she said.

We started with the photographs.

Not all of them…

The wedding photograph from the garden ceremony.

The scan images from Paris….

Her father’s notebook, which went into the bag she kept closest to her.

The small brass key, which was already with the notebook.

The bracelets… the two tiny ones from the Paris garden picnic, in their small case, which went into the same bag

The journal. The album from Paris. The charm bracelet.

I carried boxes.

The designer furniture remained.

The artwork remained.

She was holding the small case with the bracelets.

The ones for the twins.

Waiting for Our Little Miracle.

She looked at the room.

At the cot.

At the drawers

“We’ll bring the important things,” I said. “The room will be here when we come back.”

She turned.

Looked at me.

“When we come back,” she said.

Not a question either.

A statement of intention.

The last things.

Baby clothes, already washed, folded carefully

The boxes were not many.

The number of boxes we were taking communicated something…., not defeat,, what they actually needed as opposed to what they had accumulated.

The front door.

+15 89

The sun had gone below the horizon by the time we reached it.

Nooked at it.

Maya stood beside me

We looked at the garden together.

Then I locked the door.

Turned.

Handed the keys to Harrington’s assistant, who had been discreetly present for the past hour in the capacity of someone managing the handover.

Maya took my hand.

“We’ll build another home,” I said.

She looked at me.

At the garden one more time.

At the boxes in the car.

At the keys in the assistant’s hand.

“We’ll build another life,” she said.

She intertwined her fingers with mine.

The street.

Marcus had the car.

We moved across the pavement….. The house behind us.

The street ahead.

Parked at the kerb, a black sedan. Tinted windows.

A phone raised at the correct moment.

Lowered after the moment.

BRENDA’S POV

The sympathy from strangers was its own kind of hollow.

The second interview call came on the fifth day.

Not the same investigators.

New ones….. the financial crimes unit, which was a different category of room from the standard investigative interview.

The standard room had been about the allegation, about the night, about the sequence of events in the conference

room corridor.

+15 ALS

This room was about something else

Year

at across front him and his colleague and understood, before a question had been asked, that the register of this interview was different from the last one.

“Ms. Osei Brenda,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”

Standard opening.

Non-communicative.

“Of course,” I said.

He opened the folder.

“We’d like to go over some aspects of your time at Voss Maritime,” he said. “Specifically your access

I held my face at the appropriate setting.

“Certainly,” I said

The questions were not about the corridor.

They were not about Friday evening.

They were not about Alex’s face or the scream or the words I had said to the people who had arrived.

They were about the weeks before.

record.”

The granular documentation of an access record… every time my security pass had been used to enter the building, to access certain floors, to enter areas that had their own secondary access requirements.

The restricted areas.

The file room corridor.

The times that did not correspond to my assigned projects

The times that did not correspond to my supervised hours.

He placed the document on the table.

“Your security pass was used to enter restricted areas on seven occasions outside your normal working hours,” he said. “The areas in question include the executive file room corridor and the secondary server access point.” He held my gaze. “Can you explain why you needed access to those areas during those hours?”

My heartbeat

“I was working late,” I said.

The words arrived in the register I had rehearsed.

He looked at me.

“Interesting,” he said… “Because the project records show that you weren’t assigned to the work housed in those

areas.”

1 looked at the document

+15 P

At my name on the access log.

the timestamps….

At the seven occasions.

I had known about the camera gap….

I had not known about the access log.

The access log didn’t have a gap

The access log had my name.

When the interview ended I thanked them in the appropriate register.

Walked out

The corridor.

The building entrance.

Outside.

The cold.

Mason answered on the second ring

“They’re asking about the company records,” I said. “The access log. My security pass in the restricted areas”

His voice. The same voice.

“Don’t panic,” he said. “They don’t have enough….”

I held the phone.

“They have the access log,” I said.

“Access logs are preliminary,” he said. “They show presence, not purpose. Without the footage or corroborating testimony, the log is circumstantial.”

The footage

The twelve-second gap.

I had known about the gap.

I had moved through the space where the gap was.

The gap protected the footage

The access log was different.

The access log had no gap.

“Don’t panic,” Mason said again. “Stay consistent.”.

I said the thing I was supposed to say

He said what he always said.

The call ended.

The taxi.

I gave the address automatically.

The driver pulled into traffic.

I looked out the window at the city moving past

I checked the rear window.

Habit.

Unmarked vehicle.

Dark, not black. A grey that was designed to be unremarkable.

Three car lengths behind

It had been there since the building.

Not the press….