Chapter 12 - The Researcher Who Disappeared
Inside the vehicle, Daniel struggled to stay conscious.
Claire held his hand.
Detective Mason drove while Leonard sat in the front passenger seat, calling the court to secure Daniel’s will.
“Margaret said Victor would not let us reach the files,” Claire said. “She sounded afraid of him.”
Daniel nodded.
“My mother began the fraud, but Victor expanded it.”
“Why?”
“He was preparing to sell the company’s cardiac division after the drug launch. He would make hundreds of millions.”
Mason looked at them through the mirror.
“And the original researcher?”
Daniel’s expression darkened.
“Dr. Rebecca Lin discovered the cardiac reactions.”
Claire remembered the name.
Rebecca had disappeared two weeks before Daniel collapsed.
Company executives claimed she had accepted a job overseas.
Daniel never believed them.
“She contacted me the night before she vanished,” he said. “She said Victor ordered her to replace five adverse-event reports with clean data.”
“Did she give you proof?” Mason asked.
“She sent a partial file. The rest was on an encrypted drive.”
Claire touched Daniel’s arm.
“Where is she?”
“I do not know.”
Mason’s phone rang.
An agent reported that Victor’s sedan had not gone toward the bank.
It was traveling north toward an abandoned Vale Biotech storage facility.
Daniel sat straighter despite the medic’s warning.
“The old archive building.”
“What is there?” Claire asked.
“Physical laboratory records. Before the company digitized everything, safety reports were stored there.”
Mason changed direction.
“Victor is going to destroy them.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
“And Rebecca?”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“She may have hidden the encrypted drive there.”
The vehicle accelerated.
Rain began striking the windshield.
At the archive facility, Victor parked behind the building and entered through a loading door using an executive access code.
He moved through dark aisles lined with old boxes.
In the back office, a single desk lamp glowed.
A woman sat tied to a chair.
Her face was bruised, but she was conscious.
Dr. Rebecca Lin looked up as Victor entered.
“You said the funeral would solve everything,” she whispered.
Victor placed the false key on the desk.
“It almost did.”
He picked up a metal container of fuel.
May you like
“Now I am solving what remains.”
👉 Victor had not merely hidden Rebecca—he intended to erase both the researcher and every record before Daniel could reach them.
