SHE WAS ONLY SIX, WEARING YELLOW BOOTS ON THE WRONG FEET
PART 1: THE GIRL IN THE YELLOW RAIN BOOTS
The six-year-old girl who changed my company walked into Prescott Tower during a January snowstorm wearing yellow rain boots on the wrong feet and carrying a stuffed rabbit whose left ear had been repaired twice.
I was crossing the marble lobby with Thomas Hale and three senior executives when her voice cut through the usual silence around me.
“Why did you fire my mother?”
People rarely raised their voices around Gabriel Prescott, chairman of Prescott Holdings, and almost nobody accused me of wrongdoing inside a building bearing my family name.
I turned toward the security desk.
The little girl stood beneath the enormous chandelier wearing a cream sweater, a bright pink skirt, and an expression more determined than frightened.
I approached her and lowered myself until we were almost eye level.
“What is your name?”
“Sophie Hayes.”
The surname touched something old in my memory without immediately explaining itself.
“Who brought you here?”
She shook her head.
“Nobody. I came on the train.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“From where?”
“South Side.”
Outside the glass doors, snow swept across downtown Chicago.
Inside, I suddenly felt cold.
A security supervisor admitted Sophie had been waiting almost two hours because she refused to leave until she spoke with me.
She pointed toward him.
“He used his loud voice.”
Thomas looked away to hide a smile.
I noticed a folded document in Sophie’s free hand.
“May I see that?”
She hesitated.
“Promise you won’t throw it away.”
“I promise.”
She handed it to me.
It was a termination notice.
My company letterhead.
My name.
My signature.
Gabriel Prescott.
The document stated that Evelyn Hayes, Senior Financial Compliance Manager, had been terminated for gross misconduct, falsification of records, and unauthorized disclosure of confidential company information.
I read the signature twice.
Then a third time.
The executives behind me had stopped talking.
Thomas noticed my expression.
“What is it?”
I held the paper out.
“Did you authorize Evelyn Hayes’s termination?”
Thomas looked confused.
“No.”
I looked at the date.
Three days earlier.
The document had been filed under my name.
But I had been in Geneva three days earlier.
I had signed nothing concerning Evelyn Hayes.
I turned the paper over.
There was a handwritten note.
Ask Gabriel why he signed it.
My stomach tightened.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mom.”
“Where is your mother now?”
Sophie looked down at her rabbit.
“They made her leave.”
“Who?”
“The people from upstairs.”
“Did she tell you to come here?”
“No.”
“Then why did you?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“Because she said you were the only person who could fix it.”
I glanced at Thomas.
“Find Evelyn Hayes.”
Thomas immediately took out his phone.
Sophie suddenly grabbed my sleeve.
“And don’t tell Uncle Richard.”
I froze.
Richard Prescott.
My father’s younger brother.
Vice Chairman of Prescott Holdings.
The man who had helped me run the company since my father died.
“Why shouldn’t I tell Richard?”
“Because Mom said he lies.”
The lobby became completely silent.
Thomas slowly lowered his phone.
I stared at the child.
“Did your mother say anything else?”
Sophie nodded.
“She said if something happened to her, I should give you this.”
She reached inside her sweater and pulled out a tiny brass key.
Stamped into its surface were three numbers.
1708.
My pulse jumped.
Seventeen-oh-eight.
The seventeenth floor.
Room eight.
There had been no room 1708 in Prescott Tower for years.
My father had converted that entire floor into private executive archives.
I knew because I had ordered the renovation myself.
“Where did your mother get this?”
Sophie shrugged.
“She said it belonged to your father.”
My father’s name was Daniel Prescott.
He had died seventeen years ago.
Exactly seventeen years.
I stared at the key.
For the first time in my life, something my father had left behind frightened me.
I turned to Thomas.
“Clear my afternoon.”
He nodded.
Then I looked at Sophie.
“Would you like some hot chocolate?”
She considered it.
“With marshmallows?”
“Two.”
“Three.”
I almost smiled.
“Three.”
She took my hand.
And as we walked toward the private elevators, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
Inside the stuffed rabbit’s repaired left ear was a small black memory card.
Someone had hidden it there.
Someone had expected me to find it.
And someone had known Sophie would come to me.
That afternoon, we found Evelyn Hayes.
Not at home.
Not at a hospital.
Not at any address registered with Prescott Holdings.
She had disappeared.
Her phone had been disconnected.
Her bank account had been frozen.
And every internal record concerning her employment had been altered.
Thomas stared at the screen.
“This isn’t normal.”
“No,” I said.
“It looks like someone erased her.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Because seventeen years earlier, someone had erased another person.
A woman named Laura Bennett.
My father’s former executive assistant.
The woman who, according to company records, had stolen millions from Prescott Holdings and fled the country.
I had been thirteen when it happened.
My father had refused to discuss it.
My mother had cried for weeks.
And three months later, my father died.
I had spent seventeen years believing those events were unrelated.
I was beginning to understand that they weren’t.
That evening, after Sophie fell asleep in a guest room upstairs, I inserted the memory card into my computer.
There was only one file.
A video.
The recording was grainy.
My father appeared on the screen.
He looked much younger.
Tired.
Frightened.
He leaned toward the camera.
“If you’re watching this, Gabriel, something has happened to me.”
I stopped breathing.
My father’s eyes shifted toward the door.
“I need you to understand something. The records were never destroyed.”
He lowered his voice.
“They were hidden.”
A pause.
“And the person you trust most is the person you must investigate first.”
The screen went black.
I sat motionless.
Then another line appeared.
ARCHIVE 1708 — ACCESS REQUIRED.
I looked at the brass key.
And for the first time, I wondered whether my father’s death had ever been an accident.
