Sign the Papers Mr. Langford novel Chapter 384

It was a laugh entirely devoid of warmth.

"Langford Medical's archives certainly have a very convenient pattern of going missing."

Lawrence didn't argue.

"I'll keep looking into it."

"Make sure it goes through official legal channels."

"Wren."

She didn't respond.

Lawrence's voice dropped to a low murmur. "You went to Brightstone when you were sixteen?"

Wren's fingers tightened painfully around her phone.

Phoebe instantly looked at her.

Lawrence pressed on. "Someone from building management called the Langford switchboard to complain. They mentioned you were asking about a teenage girl."

Wren stared out at the chaotic street below the office building.

The loudspeakers from the wholesale market blared aggressively, cars honked in gridlock, and the air was thick with exhaust fumes and dust. Standing in the middle of all that grime, she finally realized that a massive chunk of her sixteenth year had been violently ripped out of her brain by someone else.

"Maybe I did," she said evenly.

Lawrence remained silent.

"I don't remember."

As she said those words, an indescribable wave of cold washed over her.

It wasn't fear.

It was pure, unadulterated rage.

She had been sixteen, utterly destroyed by her mother's death, desperately trying to find a single piece of evidence—only to be forcibly dragged away by her own father. The adults in her life had ordered her to stop throwing tantrums, stop digging, and let the dead rest in peace.

They had labeled her agony as 'immature.'

And dismissed her pursuit of the truth as an 'embarrassment.'

Lawrence finally spoke, his voice much quieter than before. "I'll have my team pull the security footage backups from the building."

"Security tapes from over a decade ago won't still exist."

"The building might not have them, but if someone at Langford sponsored a visitor, there has to be a trail in our internal servers."

Wren didn't respond immediately.

For once, Lawrence was actually pointing her in a useful direction.

But just because he was being useful didn't mean she was going to accept his attempts to worm his way back into her life.

"If you find anything, forward it to Mr. Lawson."

Lawrence seemed to sigh.

"Does every conversation we have need to be like this?"

Wren lowered her eyes.

"This keeps things clear."

She hung up.

Phoebe stood beside her, waiting a long time before asking, "Are you okay?"

Meanwhile, Lawrence sat in his office, staring at the scanned copy of the inventory sheet Mr. Lawson had sent over.

LM-RC-027.

He punched the badge number into Langford Medical's legacy server. The search engine spun for an agonizingly long time before finally spitting out a single, recovered email subject line from over a decade ago.

Visitor Authorization: Brightstone Consulting - Quincy Lewis.

Guarantor Department: The Board Office.

But the specific guarantor contact field was corrupted into illegible code.

Lawrence stared at the garbled text, his face turning terrifyingly pale.

The Board Office.

It always traced back to the Board Office.

He immediately ordered the IT department to recover the email body.

Half an hour later, IT replied: Email body permanently corrupted. Only the attachment file name is recoverable.

The attachment name consisted of a single, damning line.

Project Morning Star Phase II Data Cooperation Memorandum (Pending Vivian's Confirmation).

Lawrence stared at those words, and for the first time, a horrifying realization crystalized in his mind.

Back then, Vivian Vance hadn't just voiced her opposition.

She had been in possession of a critical document that absolutely required her sign-off to proceed.

And that document had completely vanished.