Chapter 6 - DANA COMES BACK
Dana was not missing.
She arrived at a police station seventy miles away two days later with a lawyer.
Alive.
Angry.
Uninjured.
She had gone to a friend’s cabin after receiving two anonymous messages:
You should have left this alone.
And:
Where did you put the backup?
No explicit physical threat.
Still enough to scare her.
She turned off her phone because she believed it was being monitored.
Was it?
No evidence eventually supported device compromise.
Her fear was real.
Her assumption was unverified.
Important.
Dana’s attorney arranged an interview.
I did not attend.
Then a separate civil deposition weeks later.
That one I did.
Dana looked like Maren around the eyes.
Older.
Sharper.
She sat across from me.
No warmth.
“You signed my exit packet.”
There it was.
“Yes.”
“Did you read my complaint?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I trusted the operational summary.”
“That was convenient.”
“Yes.”
She seemed surprised.
Maybe she expected defense.
I continued.
“It was also wrong.”
Silence.
Then Leah began.
“When did you first become concerned about access logs?”
Dana answered:
“Fourteen months ago.”
A celebrity guest complained that someone entered her suite while she was at dinner.
Housekeeping denied entry.
Engineering denied.
Security audit showed a credential assigned to a former employee had opened the service corridor and suite vestibule.
That former employee had resigned months earlier.
How?
Dana initially suspected credential deactivation failure.
She audited more.
Found three terminated or inactive employee IDs showing access after departure dates.
All at the Hawthorne Grand.
All during events involving Celeste’s foundation, social circle, or business contacts.
Not proof Celeste used them.
Then Dana cross-checked camera footage.
Some corridors had video.
One event showed Celeste entering a staff-only elevator shortly before a deactivated ID registered upstairs.
She was not seen holding a badge.
Not enough.
Then Dana found requests from Celeste’s assistant to the access-control administrator.
Can you keep temporary event credentials active through weekend cleanup?
Normal.
But some serial numbers corresponded to old employee badges.
That was not normal.
The administrator, Jonah Bell, later claimed he had reused badge serials to avoid programming new cards.
Sloppy.
Possible.
Then Dana discovered something worse.
The access events were not all legitimate event movement.
Some corresponded to guest suites or executive offices.
Why?
May you like
She began documenting.
That was when her relationship with Celeste changed.
