Chapter 3: The Skeleton in the Closet

Chapter 3: The Skeleton in the Closet

Five years. Five years Ethan had waited, a ghost in the machine, his desire for revenge a cold, constant hum beneath the surface of his meticulously rebuilt career. The opportunity, when it came, was wrapped in the most mundane of corporate disguises: the 40th anniversary of Innovate Dynamics.

A company-wide email announced the formation of a grand celebratory committee. Ethan, now seen as a dependable, if uninspired, Project Manager, was assigned to the "Legacy & History" subcommittee. His official task was to compile a celebratory slideshow and a small digital museum exhibit honoring the company’s long-serving executives. The irony was so thick he could taste it. He had been given a license to dig, a legitimate cover to excavate the life of the man who had buried him. His goal was no longer abstract; he was hunting for a specific, tangible weapon.

His first obstacle was the fortress of Marcus Thorne’s official history. Ethan spent weeks of late nights sifting through the company’s digital and physical archives. The man’s personnel file was a masterpiece of corporate fiction. It was filled with glowing performance reviews, records of successful projects (many of which Ethan knew were built on the work of others), and photos of Marcus shaking hands with smiling, important people. There wasn't a single stain, not a single misstep. It was a perfectly sanitized legacy, curated with the same obsessive vanity that made Marcus check his reflection in every available surface. After a month of searching, Ethan had nothing but a collection of hollow accolades and a growing sense of frustration. The man seemed untouchable.

Then, one night, staring at a framed photo of Marcus accepting an "Alumnus of the Year" award, Ethan remembered a key piece of his own data profile. Marcus wasn't just an Ivy League graduate; he was insufferably proud of it, mentioning his alma mater in meetings with a casual arrogance designed to remind everyone of his superior pedigree. Pride, Ethan knew, was a blinding light that often cast the darkest shadows. He shifted his search from the corporate present to the collegiate past.

The action required a deeper, more patient kind of digging. He spent his weekends in the digital archives of the university library, poring over scanned copies of student newspapers and alumni magazines from the 1970s. The work was a tedious blur of grainy photos and outdated typography. He found Marcus mentioned several times: on the dean’s list, as a member of the rowing team, in a brief notice about a student debate club. It was all predictable, reinforcing the same sterling image. He was about to give up for the night when his eyes caught a tiny article tucked away in a 1974 alumni newsletter.

The article was about a Professor Alistair Finch, from the Anthropology department, and his "groundbreaking somatic research initiative." The language was deliberately vague, mentioning a "comprehensive postural and anthropological analysis" of the entire freshman class. There was no mention of Marcus, but the year was right. It was a loose thread, almost nothing, but it was the only thing that wasn't perfectly polished.

Tracking down Alistair Finch took another week. The professor was long retired, living in a house an hour out of the city that smelled of old paper and pipe tobacco. Ethan sat in a worn armchair surrounded by towering stacks of books, a cup of lukewarm tea in his hand. He presented his cover story: he was from Innovate Dynamics, preparing a tribute for a distinguished alumnus, Marcus Thorne, and wanted to add color by speaking to his former mentors.

Professor Finch, a man with a wild halo of white hair and eyes that still held a spark of academic mischief, chuckled. "Thorne, Thorne. Yes, I remember the name. Pompous even then. Always looked like he was posing for a statue."

Ethan carefully guided the conversation. "I read about your somatic research, Professor. It sounded fascinating. What did it entail?"

The turning point came with a sly grin from the old man. "Fascinating is one word for it," Finch said, leaning forward conspiratorially. "Controversial is another. This was the seventies, you understand. We had… different ideas about scientific inquiry. We believed we could predict a man’s future character from his physique, his posture. Utter nonsense, of course, but we were convinced at the time. To do it properly, we needed standardized data."

"Standardized?" Ethan prompted, his heart starting to beat a little faster.

"Unobstructed by the sartorial affectations of the day," Finch clarified with a wave of his hand. "We photographed every last one of them, the entire male freshman class. In the altogether, my boy! Well, not quite. The dean insisted on a modicum of modesty. A posing strap, I believe it was called. For science!"

Ethan kept his expression perfectly neutral, a skill he had honed to perfection over five long years. "That's… thorough. What happened to these photographs?"

"Oh, there was a bit of a row a few years later," the professor said, his smile fading slightly. "Parents got wind of it. The administration panicked and ordered all the materials destroyed. Every last print, every negative. Wiped from history. A shame, really. Such a robust data set."

Ethan left the professor’s house with his mind racing. Supposed to be destroyed. In the digital age, he knew that "destroyed" was a relative term. Records are hard to erase completely. He had the skeleton; now he needed the X-ray.

He went straight to Chloe Evans.

He found her in her natural habitat, bathed in the glow of three monitors, the thrashing sound of a punk band leaking from her headphones. She pulled them off as he approached.

"Don't tell me," she said, spinning in her chair. "The anniversary committee wants the company logo to 'pop' more."

"I have a side project," Ethan said, his voice low and steady. "Off the books. It's about Marcus."

Chloe’s bored expression instantly sharpened. "I'm listening."

He told her the whole story—the vague newsletter, Professor Finch, the "postural study," the supposed destruction of the records.

When he finished, Chloe was silent for a moment, a slow, wicked grin spreading across her face. "Let me get this straight. You want me to scour the forgotten digital bowels of an Ivy League university to find a potentially non-existent, 40-year-old nude photograph of Marcus the Magnificent?"

"Not nude," Ethan corrected. "A posing strap. Or something similar."

She threw her head back and laughed, a genuine, delighted sound that was rare in the sterile halls of Innovate Dynamics. "Ethan, my man, this isn't a side project. This is a public service. This is the best goddamn assignment I've ever been given."

For the next two days, Chloe worked her magic. Ethan watched as she navigated a digital world he could barely comprehend, diving through firewalls, accessing forgotten university servers via backdoors he didn't know existed, and running complex searches through terabytes of archived data. It was a digital seance, and she was summoning a ghost from the past.

On the third night, she called him over. "Bingo," she whispered.

Ethan leaned in, his breath catching in his throat. On her main screen was a scanned image of a 5x7 index card, complete with faded, typewritten text.

Subject: Thorne, Marcus A. Class: '78 Accession No: 74-1138-B

And attached to the scan, in grainy, time-worn black and white, was the confirmation. It was unmistakably a young Marcus Thorne. His hair was darker and fuller, but the arrogant tilt of his head and the condescending smirk were already perfectly formed. He was lean, attempting to strike a heroic, classical pose, one hand on his hip. And he was wearing nothing but a ridiculously small, tight-fitting pair of dark swim briefs that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

Ethan stared at the image. He didn't laugh. He felt a profound, chilling calm settle over him. The public image Marcus had spent a lifetime crafting was an impenetrable fortress of wealth, power, and feigned dignity.

And Ethan had just found the key to the servants' entrance. His lips curved into the first truly relaxed smile in five years.

"We have our weapon," he said, his voice barely a whisper.