been dismissed from the Rivergate project nine days before his death.
Cause:
Repeated refusal to follow approved engineering procedures and failure to comply with project management directives.
Adrian frowned.
He opened the attached authorization.
Signed electronically by Graham Whitmore.
His father.
Adrian leaned back.
The office suddenly felt too quiet.
His father had personally authorized Daniel’s removal.
Yet four years later, Adrian had never heard the story.
Not once.
He searched for engineering concerns.
Nothing.
He searched Daniel’s employee number.
Nothing.
He searched for the specific date Marissa had mentioned.
A handful of meeting records appeared.
Then Adrian found something strange.
A sequence of file numbers was missing.
Whitmore Infrastructure’s document system automatically numbered project reports.
4371.
4372.
4373.
Then 4381.
Eight records had disappeared.
Adrian stared at the gap.
Records were archived.
They were updated.
Occasionally they were restricted.
But they were almost never deleted.
Especially engineering records from
