Chapter 11: The Decoy Signal in the Staff Quarters
The morning sun cast pale, slanting bars of light across the polished oak floors of the estate's central service corridor. My new black suit jacket, tailored overnight to replace the black-and-white maid uniform, felt unfamiliar against my shoulders—stiff, heavy, and undeniably authoritative. In my pocket, the burner phone Luca Moretti had provided hummed softly against my hip, its internal frequency primed to broadcast a localized decoy signal that would mimic the exact digital signature of the transmitter we had recovered from beneath the dining chair.
Beside me walked Marcus, his posture rigid, his eyes flicking constantly toward the reinforced security doors leading to the lower maintenance bay. Though he had been cleared of direct complicity after Julian's arrest, the shadow of suspicion still clung to him like cold mist.
"The perimeter sensors are locked down," Marcus muttered, his hand resting instinctively near his holster. "If anyone responds to that frequency within a two-mile radius, the tracking array in Moretti's office will light up like a switchboard."
"That's the point," I replied, my voice steady as I tapped the screen of the burner phone to activate the pulse. "Julian didn't act alone. He had an internal relay contact who fed him the afternoon access codes. If that contact is still inside this building, the ping will draw them out of hiding."
We turned down the narrow hallway toward the staff locker rooms—a sterile, windowless space lined with gray metal lockers and humming fluorescent lights. The air smelled of industrial detergent and damp cotton. As we crossed the threshold, the faint, high-pitched electronic chirp of the burner phone's internal receiver changed pitch, shifting from a steady pulse to a rapid, staccato click.
"It's close," I whispered, holding the device out like a compass.
The signal led us past a row of empty lockers toward the far corner, where locker 114 stood slightly ajar. A thin strip of silver duct tape was wedged into the latch, keeping the metal door from clicking fully shut.
Marcus stepped forward, his expression hardening into a grim mask. He drew his sidearm with practiced smoothness, the metal sliding from its holster with a soft, ominous rasp. With a swift kick of his boot, he threw the locker door wide open.
Inside sat an identical black transmitter box, its green LED indicator light blinking furiously as it received our decoy broadcast. Taped to its side was a secondary burner phone, its screen glowing with an incoming text message preview: Package compromised. Burn the ledger.
"Don't move," Marcus commanded, though the locker was entirely empty except for the equipment.
May you like
I reached out, my gloved fingers carefully peeling the glowing phone away from the transmitter box. The incoming message had just updated with a sender ID—a local VOIP number routed through a shell corporation registered in the docks district.
"They're still on the estate network," I said, looking up at Marcus with sharp clarity. "The person who sent this is watching us right now."
