Chapter 20 - Echoes of the Past
A gentle chime from her encrypted terminal broke the stillness. Zariah didn't rush. She walked back to her minimalist desk, her movements measured and deliberate, and tapped the screen to reveal an incoming data packet from her private investigative firm in Denver.
It was a routine quarterly status report on Callum Vance.
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According to the brief, confidential summary, Callum was currently residing in a modest, mid-tier apartment complex on the outskirts of Denver, working a low-level consulting gig for a failing regional manufacturing firm. The charismatic pitchman who had once commanded ballrooms and charmed investors had been reduced to a bitter, hollowed-out footnote in corporate history. He lived with the constant, grinding paranoia of a man who knew he had been outsmarted by someone he had once underestimated.
Zariah read through the bullet points with complete emotional detachment. There was no triumphant satisfaction, no lingering resentment, and no desire for retroactive vengeance. Callum had simply been an equation that needed balancing, a variable that had threatened the integrity of the formula. Once he was removed, the system corrected itself. She deleted the file permanently from the server, letting the digital ghost dissolve into nothingness.
