Arthur turned the Phillips-head screwdriver, loosening the final mounting bracket. He slid the two-terabyte solid-state drive out of the motherboard and slipped it into a silver anti-static bag.
He placed it into his canvas backpack, right next to the three other drives, his passport, his birth certificate, and the physical ledger he kept for their taxes. The custom-built PC tower on the desk was now just an empty metal ribcage. It looked untouched from the outside, but the brain was gone.
He zipped the backpack and set it by the front door, tucking it neatly behind the coat rack where Clara would never look.
In the kitchen, the oven timer gave a sharp, electronic chirp. Arthur pulled on an oven mitt and pulled out the cast-iron skillet. The rosemary and lemon chicken was sizzling, the skin perfectly blistered. He transferred it to a serving platter, set it in the center of the dining table, and uncorked a $40 bottle of Pinot Noir.
Normalcy. That was the weapon.
At 6:15 PM, the deadbolt clicked.
Clara walked in. She didn't announce herself with her usual energized "I'm home!" She just pushed the door shut and leaned her forehead against the wood for a long, silent moment. Her shoulders were slumped. The expensive silk blouse she'd worn that morning looked rumpled, and she had swapped her heels for the emergency flats she kept in her purse.
Arthur stayed at the kitchen island, wiping down the granite counter with a damp cloth. "Hey. Perfect timing. Dinner's ready."
Clara jumped slightly, startled. She turned and looked at the dining table. The roasted chicken. The lit taper candles. The two poured glasses of wine.
She walked slowly into the kitchen, her eyes fixed on his face. She was looking for a smirk. A twitch. Any microscopic sign of a tell.
Arthur just gave her a warm, tired smile and pushed a wine glass toward her. "To the new VP."
Clara didn't reach for the glass. Her hands stayed gripped around the strap of her leather tote bag. "I didn't get it."
Arthur stopped wiping the counter. He let his expression drop into a mask of perfect, supportive disappointment. "What? Why? What happened with the Gallagher pitch?"
"They walked." Her voice was completely hollow. "And the afternoon review with Marcus was a disaster."
"Babe, I'm so sorry." Arthur walked around the island and pulled out a chair for her. "Sit down. Eat something. What went wrong?"
Clara sat. She stared at the chicken like it was made of plastic. "The presentation file corrupted. Right before I plugged into the projector. It reverted to an old draft."
"That's weird," Arthur said, taking a sip of his wine. The Pinot was dry and excellent. "Usually, the cloud sync catches that. Did you check the version history?"
"Yes." Clara finally looked up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. "It synced at 1:42 PM. While I was at lunch."
Arthur held her gaze. He didn't blink. "Well, you know how buggy Apple's servers can be. I can run a diagnostic on your MacBook after dinner, see if I can recover the local file."
"David handled it," she said quickly. Her voice tightened on the name.
"Good old David," Arthur said smoothly. He cut a piece of chicken, chewed it methodically, and swallowed. "He's a good manager to have in your corner. I'm sure he backed you up in front of Marcus."
Clara physically flinched. She picked up her wine glass and took a massive, ungraceful swallow.
"I actually can't stay for dinner," Arthur said, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin and standing up. "I just wanted to make sure you had a hot meal after the big day."
Clara frowned, confusion cutting through her paranoia. "Where are you going?"
"Emergency server maintenance at the logistics firm. The same one I was at this morning. One of their main cooling units failed, and they're paying double-time for the night shift to keep the racks from frying." He walked over to the coat rack and pulled on his jacket, smoothly hoisting the heavy canvas backpack over one shoulder.
"Arthur," Clara said. Her voice was suddenly very small.
He paused with his hand on the doorknob. "Yeah?"
"Did you... did you come up to my office last night? When you dropped off the food?"
It was the question she had been dying to ask all day. The question that was eating her alive.
Arthur looked back at her. She was sitting at the beautiful dining table he had bought, in the apartment he paid the rent for, eating the meal he had cooked. She looked terrified.
"I already told you," Arthur said, his voice flat, completely devoid of its usual warmth. "I left it at the door."
He didn't wait for her to reply. He opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, and pulled it shut behind him.
Back in the apartment, Clara sat in the silence. She let out a shaky breath she hadn't realized she was holding. He doesn't know, she told herself again. It was just bad luck. A string of horrible, catastrophic bad luck.
She stood up, leaving the food untouched, and walked down the hall to the spare bedroom to boot up the desktop PC. She needed to check her personal bank account and figure out the car payment.
She jiggled the mouse. The monitors stayed black.
She frowned, reaching down under the desk to press the power button on the heavy metal tower. Her finger pushed the button in, but nothing happened. No fan noise. No blue LED lights.
Clara dropped to her knees. She grabbed the side panel of the tower and gave it a sharp pull. It slid off easily.
She stared into the casing. The motherboard was there, but the wiring was disconnected. The slots where the hard drives usually sat were completely, cleanly empty.
The apartment was suddenly very, very quiet.