THE WEIGHT OF SECRETS
Maya's POV
The law firm's archives exist three floors below street level in climate-controlled silence, fluorescent lights humming over endless rows of banker's boxes containing the corpses of legal battles fought and won decades ago. I shouldn't be here at 2:47 AM, keycard access privileges notwithstanding, but sleep has become impossible since the gala. Every time I close my eyes, I see David Sterling's predatory smile and hear those businessmen discussing my parents' murder like a successful quarterly earnings report.
My footsteps echo off concrete floors as I navigate between storage units labeled with years that predate my legal career. 2009. 2008. 2007. The year my parents died, when Morrison, Kline & Associates handled the estate settlement that transformed their brilliant innovations into sealed documents buried so deep in legal bureaucracy that even I need a flashlight to find them.
Box 847-R sits exactly where James Morrison's cryptic filing system suggested it would be, cardboard corners soft with age but seal intact. My hands shake as I slice through fifteen-year-old tape with a utility knife that tastes like rust and secrets. Inside, manila folders organized with the obsessive precision that defined my parents' approach to everything: research notes, patent applications, corporate communications, and correspondence that should have been destroyed years ago under standard retention policies.
But Morrison never destroys anything. His paranoia about legal liability means every document, every memo, every scrap of paper that passes through this firm gets preserved like evidence for trials that might never happen. Tonight, that obsessive record-keeping might finally serve justice instead of billable hours.
The first folder contains patent applications for something called "Quantum Encryption Protocol Suite"—technology so far ahead of its time that even now, fifteen years later, the technical specifications read like science fiction. My parents weren't just developing cloud security; they were creating digital fortresses that would have made corporate espionage virtually impossible, systems so secure that governments would have paid billions for access while criminals would have killed to prevent their implementation.
My father's handwriting covers the margins of technical diagrams, notes that reveal the scope of what they'd built: "Breakthrough achieved - full implementation could revolutionize data protection globally. Conservative estimate: $50B market value within five years. Susan's algorithms are decades ahead of current industry standard."
Fifty billion dollars. Not millions—billions. My parents weren't just innovating; they were creating technology that would have shifted the entire balance of power in digital security, made them the most important people in an industry built on information control. No wonder someone killed them before the patents could be filed.
But it's the second folder that makes my blood freeze. Corporate communications between my parents and various tech companies, including preliminary negotiations with Cross Technologies dated just weeks before their death. Richard Cross had invited them to a private meeting, ostensibly to discuss licensing their innovations for mutual benefit, promising partnership rather than competition in the emerging cloud security market.
The final letter in this correspondence chills me to the bone. My mother's careful typing, addressed to their lawyer, dated three days before the mountain road accident:
James—We're increasingly concerned about security breaches in our communications. Someone has been accessing our servers, copying files, attempting to reverse-engineer our protocols. Richard Cross's company seems to know details about our work that we've never shared publicly. We suspect corporate espionage, possibly involving insider access to our systems. Please advise on legal options for protecting our intellectual property. We're considering abandoning the Cross Technologies meeting and seeking federal protection for our innovations. The technology is too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands.
—Susan Reeves
My hands tremble as I hold evidence that my parents knew they were being hunted, knew Richard Cross was stealing their work, knew enough to be terrified but not enough to save their lives. Three days after writing this letter, their car went off a mountain road during clear weather while driving home from what they thought was a business meeting but was actually their execution.
The third folder contains documents I've never seen before—technical specifications so complex they require advanced degrees in computer science and cryptography to understand. But scattered throughout the incomprehensible code and algorithms, I find handwritten notes from my father that translate the technical revolution into human terms:
"Military applications alone worth $20B. Financial sector implementation could eliminate credit card fraud globally. Healthcare privacy protections would make current HIPAA compliance look like suggestions. This isn't just innovation—it's digital evolution."
And from my mother, in her precise handwriting: "Robert's right about the scope, but wrong about the timeline. This technology is so advanced it could remain relevant for decades. Whoever controls these protocols controls the future of digital privacy. We're not just building software—we're creating the foundation for digital society's next century."
They weren't exaggerating. Even fifteen years later, the technical specifications read like blueprints for security systems that current technology can't match. My parents had built something so revolutionary that it would still be cutting-edge today, innovations that could have prevented every major data breach of the past decade.
The final folder contains the smoking gun: internal memos between Richard Cross and his development team, somehow obtained by my parents' legal investigation, discussing the theft of Reeves innovations with the casual tone of legitimate business strategy.
"Reeves protocols successfully integrated into our quantum security suite. Original source code acquisition proceeding on schedule. Patent applications delayed pending resolution of ownership questions. Recommend accelerating timeline for complete technology transfer before federal oversight increases."
"Susan Reeves growing suspicious of information leaks. Suggest limiting direct contact until final acquisition phase complete. Robert Reeves remains unaware of scope of our access to their systems."
The dates on these memos span months leading up to my parents' death, proving Richard Cross had been systematically stealing their work while maintaining the pretense of partnership negotiations. But the final memo, dated the day before their mountain road "accident," contains language that makes my vision blur with rage:
"Reeves couple requesting federal protection for intellectual property. Recommend immediate resolution of ownership transfer to prevent government intervention. Window of opportunity closing rapidly. Authorize implementation of contingency protocols."
Contingency protocols. Corporate euphemism for murder.
My phone buzzes in the archive silence, Ethan's name glowing on the screen with a message that arrives like a threat disguised as romance: "Can't sleep either? Thinking about you. Coffee tomorrow morning? I have something important to discuss."
Something important. Like the fact that his father murdered mine for technology worth fifty billion dollars? Like the reality that I'm not just an inheritance-desperate lawyer but the daughter of the two people who could have prevented every major cybersecurity disaster of the past fifteen years?
I photograph every document with my phone's camera, evidence that transforms my parents from tragic accident victims into martyrs who died protecting innovations that could have changed the world. But as I close the final folder, a loose paper falls to the concrete floor—a handwritten note from my father that I'd missed during my initial review:
"If something happens to us, if this technology falls into the wrong hands, Maya needs to know the truth. The protocols aren't just valuable—they're dangerous. In the wrong hands, they could be used for surveillance rather than protection, government control rather than private security. We built digital locks, but locks can be used to keep people in as well as keep dangers out. Our daughter deserves to know what we died protecting, and what she might inherit beyond money."
I sit on the cold concrete floor of the archive, surrounded by evidence that my inheritance isn't just fifty million dollars but fifty billion dollars worth of technology that powerful people killed to steal and might kill again to keep hidden. My parents didn't die in a weather-related accident—they were murdered by Richard Cross to prevent them from filing patents that would have exposed his theft and potentially revolutionized global digital security.
But they hid their innovations so well that even their killer never found the complete protocols. Somewhere in the legacy they left me, somewhere in the trust fund documents and inheritance paperwork, the real treasure isn't money—it's the technology that could make me the most dangerous person in Seattle's tech community.
The archive lights hum overhead like a countdown timer, and I realize that Ethan's text isn't a romantic gesture but a summons. His father might be dead, but the technology worth killing for is still out there, still hidden, still waiting to be claimed by whoever can solve the puzzle my parents embedded in their final gift to their daughter.
I'm not just being hunted for revenge—I'm being hunted for fifty billion dollars worth of innovations that could change the world or control it, depending on whose hands finally unlock the secrets my parents died protecting.