There was only one file saved on the entire device.
An audio recording, dated November 8th.
The night before he died.
I reached forward, grabbed the computer mouse, and dragged the audio file onto the secure corporate desktop to play it through the larger speakers.
I made an irreversible decision the moment I dropped that file onto the network.
A small window popped up on the screen, verifying the file transfer into the central Vance & Sterling mainframe.
I double-clicked the audio icon.
The sound of harsh, frantic static filled the room, followed immediately by the sound of two men arguing furiously.
I recognized the voices instantly.
It was David.
And Richard.
"You can't do this, Richard!" David's voice echoed through the speakers, laced with panic. "The material is defective! The whole foundation is going to buckle!"
"Keep your voice down," Richard hissed on the recording, his tone cold and lethal. "The concrete was fifty percent cheaper. We saved ninety million dollars. The inspectors are paid off. It holds."
"It won't hold!" David yelled. "I have the structural reports! I'm going to the board. I'm going to the FBI."
There was a long, terrifying silence on the recording.
Then, Richard spoke again, his voice dropping to a terrifying, quiet whisper.
"If you blow the whistle on this concrete, David, I will bury you. Cut the brakes on your own car for all I care. But those structural reports will burn."
The recording clicked off, plunging the office into absolute silence.
I sat frozen in the chair, the air suddenly knocked out of my lungs.
David wasn't embezzling money.
He wasn't a thief.
He was tracking Richard's bribes.
He was a whistleblower.
He was trying to save thousands of lives from a collapsing building, and Richard had him murdered for it.
Before I could even process the overwhelming surge of grief and rage, the heavy mahogany door of the office slammed shut with a deafening, violent crash.
A heavy magnetic lock engaged above the frame with a loud, mechanical CLACK.
The desk lamp suddenly flickered and died.
The ambient lights in the ceiling shut off, replaced immediately by a spinning, blood-red emergency light flashing above the door.
I leaped out of the chair, rushing toward the heavy wooden door.
I grabbed the brass handle and pulled with all my strength.
It was sealed shut.
The computer monitor on the desk suddenly flickered, the screen turning entirely black.
A single line of white text appeared in the center of the dark screen.
UNAUTHORIZED NETWORK BREACH DETECTED. SECTOR 40 IN LOCKDOWN.
Richard had trapped me inside.
The heavy, mechanical hum of the magnetic lock vibrated through the thick wood of the door.
I stepped back, my chest heaving, the blood rushing in my ears like a roaring freight train.
The spinning red emergency light bathed the dark office in a rhythmic, hellish glow.
I was trapped.
Trapped on the 40th floor of a building I had designed, locked in a tomb that held the final echoes of my murdered son.
I turned back to the desk, my mind racing through possible escape routes.
The windows were reinforced glass, designed to withstand hurricane-force winds.
The air vents were too small for a man my size to fit through.
I grabbed the burner phone from the desk and tried to dial 911, but the screen displayed a bold, flashing warning: NO SIGNAL.
Richard had engaged the executive floor signal jammers.
He wasn't just trying to keep me contained; he was isolating me completely before he sent his people up here to finish what he started five years ago.
I needed a weapon.
I moved frantically around the dim office, grabbing a heavy, solid bronze architectural award from a shelf near the window.
It weighed at least ten pounds in my hand, a crude but effective blunt instrument.
I backed into the darkest corner of the room, raising the heavy bronze statue, preparing to fight whoever came through that door.
Suddenly, a sharp, metallic scraping sound echoed from the far side of the room.
It wasn't coming from the door.
It was coming from the narrow maintenance closet adjacent to the private bathroom.
I raised the statue higher, my muscles tensing as the closet door slowly creaked open.
A figure stumbled out into the red light, tripping over the threshold and falling hard onto the carpet.