Chapter 3 Too Perfect

Brooke

By noon two days after my father died, I had an attorney, a house full of police, and confirmation that someone had been using my Mitchell Systems credentials without my knowledge.

The last one bothered me most.

I sat in the library with my laptop open between Evelyn Shaw and me, staring at an audit report my chief information officer had sent twenty minutes earlier. Evelyn had represented Mitchell Systems through two acquisitions, a patent dispute, and enough regulatory bullshit to understand why the list on my screen was making my stomach turn.

“These all came through your executive account?” she asked.

“Through credentials assigned to me.” I scrolled down. “But I didn’t authorize any of them.”

Four confidential files had been exported over six weeks. Two contained client-routing architecture, another held internal fraud protocols, and the fourth was restricted even from most of my executive team. Whoever had accessed them knew exactly where to look and had done it carefully enough that nobody noticed until I ordered a full audit.

Evelyn leaned back. “Then from this point forward, you don’t answer a single question about Mitchell Systems without me sitting beside you.”

“That was already the plan.”

I had called her around four the morning my father died, after Detective Mercer’s questions stopped sounding like an attempt to establish a timeline and started sounding like groundwork for something else. 

Cullen had agreed I needed representation, then immediately offered to call one of the Ardners’ criminal attorneys.

I had called my own.

There still hadn’t been much opportunity to process the fact that my father was dead. Every few hours it hit me again, usually at some ridiculous moment, like passing his coat hanging near the front door or hearing my mother ask the housekeeper whether anyone had seen his reading glasses.

Then another officer asked a question, another reporter called, or another piece of my life became evidence, and grief was shoved aside by whatever disaster demanded my attention next.

A knock sounded against the open library door, and Cullen entered without waiting for an answer. His gaze went directly to my laptop.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to determine how someone got into my company.”

“Brooke, your father was murdered less than forty-eight hours ago.”

“I’m painfully aware.”

His jaw tightened. “The police are investigating. You need to let them.”

“And there’s an active security breach inside Mitchell Systems. I’m not handing my company over to the police and hoping they eventually explain it to me.”

“You have people who handle cybersecurity.”

“I’m the CEO. I am one of the people who handles it.”

For several seconds he simply stared at me before his expression softened into the one everyone else seemed to find reassuring.

“I’m trying to keep you from making this worse.”

The Ardner name had appeared throughout the documents in my father’s office, and that sentence landed differently now.

“Worse for who?”

His eyes sharpened, but before he could answer, a uniformed officer appeared behind him.

“Ms. Mitchell? Detective Mercer is ready for you.”

Evelyn closed her folder and stood. “Then we’re ready for him.”

Mercer had taken over one of the downstairs sitting rooms. He acknowledged Evelyn, waited until we were seated, then slid a photograph across the table.

It showed a small black security token stamped with the Mitchell Systems logo.

“Do you recognize this?”

I picked up the photograph. “It’s an executive authentication key.”

“Yours?”

“Mine looks like that. So do several others issued to senior executives.”

Then I noticed the shallow nick near one corner.

I had dropped mine on a concrete parking garage floor months ago and cursed for ten straight minutes because the casing had been brand-new.

My stomach sank.

“This one is registered to you,” Mercer said. “It was recovered from your father’s desk. Forensics identified your prints on the casing, and Mitchell Systems confirmed the token was used in several unauthorized transfers we’re investigating.”

For a moment, I forgot to breathe.

“That’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because that key stays locked in my office when I’m not using it.”

“Did you verify that?”

“Not yet.”

Evelyn’s hand settled lightly over my wrist before I could reach for my phone. “You’ll verify it after this interview.”

Mercer watched the exchange. “You were also in your father’s office the night he died, and you handled documents connected to those same transfers.”

“I handled a report with my company’s name on it.”

“Then less than fifteen minutes later, you argued with your father and told witnesses you needed to discuss Mitchell Systems.”

“About the party,” I said. “I never confronted him about what I found.”

Mercer moved to the digital records next. Mitchell Systems had already complied with a preservation request, and the access logs pointed repeatedly to my executive credentials. 

Evelyn reminded him that credentials could be compromised and that an account identifier did not establish who had actually been behind a keyboard.

Mercer agreed.

Too easily.

That was when the shape of the conversation became clear. He wasn’t relying on any single fact because he didn’t need to. The argument put me in conflict with my father. The compromised files connected my company to whatever he had been hiding. My security token placed something registered to me inside his office and tied it directly to the leaked data.

Then Mercer opened another folder.

“Your father’s attorney confirmed yesterday that you are the primary beneficiary of his estate.”

“My father was worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“More than that, according to preliminary estimates.”

“I’m already wealthy.”

“And you stand to become considerably wealthier.”

Evelyn’s voice cooled. “Unless you intend to charge my client, we’re finished discussing her inheritance.”

Mercer didn’t answer immediately, but he didn’t have to. I could see the story now, and whoever had assembled it understood exactly what made a convincing lie.

Nothing about it was outrageous. That was the brilliance of it. Every piece belonged to my real life, from my argument with my father to the authentication key I had personally handled. Someone had simply moved those pieces around until they created a version of me who stole confidential information, confronted her father, and profited enormously when he died.

Then another possibility struck me hard enough to turn my stomach.

The anonymous message had made sure I entered that office looking for answers. It had made sure I examined those documents closely enough to leave evidence that I had been there.

What if it hadn’t been a warning at all?

What if it had been bait?

My phone vibrated inside my bag. Cullen again.

I left it there.

Mercer folded his hands on the table. “Ms. Mitchell, there’s something I need to make clear before you leave. Your father’s death is being investigated as a homicide, and based on the evidence we currently have, you are no longer being treated solely as a witness.”

Evelyn shifted beside me, but I already knew what came next.

“At this time, Brooke Mitchell, you are the primary suspect in your father’s murder.”

Someone hadn’t simply planned to kill my father.

They had planned what would happen to me afterward.