Chapter 120: Freya Refuses the Experiment

Freya did not answer Richard Mercer's question. Instead, she wrote a reply in her private notebook: None of your business.

Louis approved.

Derek wanted to use the author contact form to trace the sender, but the message had passed through several privacy services. They preserved headers and server logs while avoiding any response that might reveal what they knew.

Nadia explained why Mercer's question mattered. Northwind models depended on behavioral baselines. The original Freya had years of data showing high materialism, low domestic engagement, emotional dependence on wealth, and little interest in Louis personally. Cleaning the apartment and choosing to stay represented a statistical rupture.

Freya hated hearing a human life reduced to variables, even when the description was accurate.

Louis disliked it more. "She wasn't a dataset."

Nadia nodded. "That was Julian's final objection too."

Freya realized something else. If Mercer had continued monitoring after the collapse, he might have noticed every deviation she introduced: selling bags, writing novels, supporting Louis, helping Northstar, reconciling with people the original timeline treated as enemies.

Her entire new life could have looked like a sequence of impossible data points.

The thought made her angry rather than afraid.

She opened her author dashboard and scheduled her chapters as usual. She cooked lunch. She watered the little plant by the window. She refused to alter ordinary behavior merely because someone might be watching.

Louis noticed. "You're making a point."

"Yes. My life is not his experiment."

The accident investigation also advanced. The truck driver's attorney contacted authorities offering a proffer interview. He was willing to discuss the cash payment received after his release in exchange for consideration regarding any new charges.

Freya's hands trembled when she heard.

The driver claimed he had been paid before the accident to frighten David Stonebridge, not kill him. He was instructed to follow the family car and force David to stop so another vehicle could confront him. According to the driver, his brakes failed during the pursuit and the collision became fatal.

That account introduced another horrifying possibility: even the hired driver might have been manipulated or set up.

He identified the man who recruited him from a photograph.

It was not Adrian.

It was a Greyline contractor named Marcus Vale, already deceased.

Records showed Vale reported through a chain ultimately linked to Adrian's trust network.

The driver also remembered hearing Vale say, "The old man wants the ledger back."

Freya asked which old man.

The driver never knew.

Adrian would have been much younger then. Charles was older, but all existing evidence suggested Charles was helping David. Evelyn was still alive around the early stages of the dispute but had died before the accident.

The phrase opened yet another ambiguity.

Freya closed her eyes. She wanted a clean villain and a clean answer. Reality refused to give her either.

Louis sat beside her. "We follow the evidence."

She nodded.

And she made herself the same promise about Mercer. He could ask questions forever. Freya was done performing for anyone else's model.

The driver's account would need corroboration. Investigators warned Freya that cooperating witnesses sometimes minimize their own intent. She understood. She did not need to believe him completely for the information about Vale and Voss to matter. The next step was records, not emotion.

The driver's account would need corroboration. Investigators warned Freya that cooperating witnesses sometimes minimize their own intent. She understood. She did not need to believe him completely for the information about Vale and Voss to matter. The next step was records, not emotion.

The driver's account would need corroboration. Investigators warned Freya that cooperating witnesses sometimes minimize their own intent. She understood. She did not need to believe him completely for the information about Vale and Voss to matter. The next step was records, not emotion.