The Fake Audit

The police. The threat landed like a stone in the bottom of a well. Elena watched Leo eat his cereal, her heart breaking for the innocence he was losing one spoonful at a time.

"It's okay, Leo," she said, her voice steady. "No one is taking me away. Grandma is just... confused. We're going to fix it."

She kissed the top of his head, smelling the milk and sleep, and walked out of the room before he could see her face crumble.

She went to the guest room where Julian had slept, or rather, where he had pretended to sleep before his early morning flight. The bed was made, the corners sharp.

He was gone. But his digital footprint remained.

Arthur’s threat about the "fake audit" had been specific. *Erratic behavior. Unauthorized queries.* They were building a case for incompetence, perhaps even criminal negligence.

Elena went to the office. The door was unlocked. Inside, her desk was a void. Her laptop was gone. Her files were gone. Even her framed photo of the kids was missing.

But she didn't need her laptop. She needed the main server. And she knew Arthur had locked her out.

She sat in Julian's chair. It was too big for her, the leather cold. She opened his desk drawer. Empty.

She checked the bottom drawer. Empty.

She checked the trash can. Empty.

They had sanitized the room.

Elena stood up, pacing. She needed a way in. A backdoor.

She remembered the HVAC system.

Three years ago, they had installed a smart climate control system for the wine caves. It was separate from the main network for security reasons, or so the vendor claimed. But Elena had insisted on a bridge so she could monitor energy costs in real-time.

The bridge was a simple API key. If she could access the HVAC control panel, she might be able to piggyback onto the main network through the shared power monitoring logs.

She went to the utility closet in the hallway. The panel was there, blinking green.

She pulled out her phone. She connected to the guest wifi, which was still active. She typed in the IP address for the climate control system.

*Login: Admin.*
*Password: PinotNoir1990.*

It worked.

She was in the climate system. She navigated to the "Energy Usage" tab. She found the link to the main server's power log.

She clicked it.

*Accessing...*

It was slow, clunky, a digital crawlspace. But it bypassed the user authentication protocols because the system saw her as a thermostat, not a person.

She was in.

She couldn't access files, but she could see the system activity log.

*User: A.Pendelton. Action: Edit File. Time: 8:42 AM.*

He was in the system right now.

Elena watched the log scroll.

*File: Employment_Contract_E_StClair.pdf*
*Action: Modify.*

He wasn't just deleting files. He was editing them.

He was changing the terms of her employment. He was adding clauses, backdating performance reviews. He was manufacturing a history of failure.

*File: Severance_Agreement_Draft_v2.docx*
*Action: Create.*

She watched as he built the cage around her.

Then, a new entry appeared.

*User: V.StClair. Action: Access Folder.*
*Folder: /Medical/Confidential/J_StClair/*

Victoria was accessing Julian's medical files?

Elena frowned. Julian was healthy. He played polo. He drank too much, but his liver enzymes were fine.

She tapped the screen, trying to expand the log entry.

*File: J_StClair_Psych_Eval_1996.pdf*

1996.

Julian was twelve in 1996.

Why was Victoria looking at a thirty-year-old psychiatric evaluation of her twelve-year-old son?

Elena took a screenshot.

Then she saw another entry.

*File: S_StClair_Psych_Eval_1996.pdf*

Sebastian.

Two files. Created on the same day.

*Action: Delete.*

Victoria wasn't just looking. She was erasing.

"No," Elena whispered.

She tried to execute a copy command through the thermostat interface.

*Error: Command Not Supported.*

She watched, helpless, as the log updated.

*File Deleted.*
*File Deleted.*

The history of the twins was being wiped away.

But then, a canary tripped.

A small, insignificant notification popped up in the corner of the screen.

*System Alert: File modification detected in protected directory.*

It wasn't the files Victoria was deleting. It was the file Arthur was editing.

*File: Employment_Contract_E_StClair.pdf*

Elena had set a tripwire on her own contract months ago, a simple script that sent an email if the file was modified. She checked her phone.

No email.

Arthur had disabled the notification system.

But the system log still recorded the trip.

And it recorded the location of the user.

*User: A.Pendelton. Location: Local_Network_/Office_Main.*

Arthur wasn't doing this remotely.

He was here.

He was in the house.

Elena heard the front door open. The heavy click of the latch.

"Elena?" Arthur’s voice floated down the hallway. "Are you home?"

He wasn't in the office. He was coming for her.