"How certain are you?"
"Certain enough to say before sending the evidence, based on the pattern Diane left, whoever it is has been orchestrating everything from outside the visible framework."
"Where are you now?" Mira asked.
"Still at the office, I pulled the surveillance logs Diane flagged and ran them through the secondary filter, there's a pattern, Mira, a consistent one."
"I'm on my way, don't send anything on the main channel, nothing digital." Mira was already moving.
"There's something else; the thread doesn't just lead forward; it points to someone who's been keeping close to the case, I think someone on the current oversight team has been leaking information."
"Listen, Jones, don't use the main channel for anything, if you find something else on the fifth man thread, you call me directly and you call no one else." Mira hung up and glanced at Arthur, "Everyone tied to this case is in danger, everyone, I'll go check on Chen, can you check on Miller?"
"Alright, stay near your phone at all times." Percy grabbed his jacket and rushed out, with Mira following close behind. They each got into their cars and drove off in opposite directions.
Chen was asleep when Mira arrived. She knocked on the door twice, there was a mix of firmness and gentleness in her knock, he answered with puffy eyes, which widened in surprise at seeing her there.
"What happened?"
"I went to check if you were still in the parking lot. You weren't, so I ran here, when did you get home?"
"At dawn, nothing important happened and I thought you'd be asleep, so I didn't call."
"Come with me, quickly." Mira rushed back to her car.
Chen grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, locked the apartment and followed her, "What happened? Why are you so tense? Did Soane send the files anyway?"
"Fuck Soane, we're in bigger trouble." Mira pulled out her phone just as a call came in from Arthur.
"I found Miller, I'm taking him to the doctor."
"Arthur, make sure Miller's okay. I'm going to Jones, she's alone." Mira hung up and drove toward Jones's office. She asked Chen to call Jones from her phone while she focused on driving. Chen tried, but Jones didn't answer. It rang four times, then a fifth, but still no response.
The drive to the office took eleven minutes, the office building was a seven-story block, Mira and Chen ran to the elevator, it took forty seconds to reach Jones's office, but it felt like forty hours.
The floor was quiet. Mira rushed into Jones's office to find the monitor still on, a cup of coffee gone cold, a cardigan draped over the back of the chair and Jones nowhere in sight. Chen glanced behind the desk, then into the small adjoining bathroom.
"Nothing." He muttered.
Mira walked over to the monitor, the surveillance log still open. She didn't touch it, just glanced at the coffee, then at the cardigan, "We're leaving."
"Shouldn't we report..."
"We're leaving, Chen." She lifted the cardigan from the back of the chair, folded it neatly and placed it on the desk.
"Mira, what are you doing?” Chen asked as soon as they got in the car.
"Diane spoke about me eleven days ago, she studied the Calloway case and she studied me." Mira gave Chen a strange look, "You know what that means?"
"Diane planned it." Chen was shocked.
"That's why there was no sign of her fighting back, she planned everything. She knew she was going to die and she chose the place and circumstances of her death or I should say that she chose her death." Mira thought about her intact nail, "She spent her last moments leaving evidence for me to find, planning for me to go through it and handle it exactly how she wanted. She built the case and handed it to me by dying on Platform Nine."
Chen sat with that for a long moment, "She was unbelievable."
"What we need to do is go back to her office without getting caught on camera." Mira drove just far enough for the camera to see they had left.
"I need you to think carefully, everyone who knew Jones was running those logs tonight, who do you suspect the least?"
He turned to look at her, she was already nodding, "That's the one."
"I can't believe Moore did that." Chen rubbed the back of his neck, "Son of a bitch."
"Jones is either captured or went to the safe on her own, we need to figure out what she discovered before they wipe it."
"We can't use the front entrance; there's a camera at the lobby desk and the night guard keeps track of everyone who comes in."
"Backdoor it is, then."
They slipped quietly through the back corridor, opting for the stairs over the elevator and stepped onto Jones's floor from the far end of the hallway.
The office was just as they'd left it, monitor glowing, coffee gone cold, a folded cardigan resting on the desk.
Chen headed straight for the monitor while Mira lingered by the door to keep an eye on the hallway.
"The log's still open." Chen murmured, "There's another window minimized behind it."
"Open it."
Chen clicked and a document filled the screen, half-finished, the last sentence cut off mid-word as if Jones had left it hanging in the middle of a thought. Chen leaned closer, "You've got to see this."
She crossed the room to stand beside him. It was a memo, addressed to no one, with a single line Jones had typed as the header.
"I hope it's you."
"We should head to Miller and then lay low." Chen had concluded.
"We all need to lay low, you, me, Vasic, Miller, and Arthur." Mira left the office; Chen followed her without looking back, they returned to the car and drove to the address Arthur had given. They showed up within thirty minutes, he was stabbed, tied to a chair and his phone shattered, whoever did it clearly wanted him to endure a slow, agonizing death or be found as a chilling warning.
Arthur hugged Mira the moment he saw her, "Where's Carmen?"
"She was gone when we got there. I think she left on her own, I'll try to figure it out later, after Miller is moved to a safe place."
"Diane's case isn't resolved yet and if Carmen is killed, Callow can't afford that." Arthur reassured her.
"If she's been abducted, they'll redesign the case within seventy-two hours and then Jones won't be safe anymore."
"Mira, log me as a prime suspect and submit the reports." Arthur said.
"You know what would happen to you after that, I won't do it."
"You saw me in the footage when Diane was killed, log me as a prime suspect and submit the reports, or I'll surrender to the court myself."
To be continued...