CHAPTER 3

Chapter 3

Echo After Dark

(Andra’s POV)

The next morning, the newsroom was buzzing again—phones ringing, printers spitting out drafts, caffeine running through everyone’s veins like fuel. For most reporters, it was just another day chasing headlines. For me, it felt like walking into a minefield.

I hadn’t slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I heard that voice again—You dig too deep, Ms. Enriquez. —followed by the metallic click from the recording.

“Hey,” Lester called from his desk, lifting a cup of coffee. “You look like you wrestled with a deadline and lost.”

“Something like that,” I muttered, setting my bag down.

He smirked. “Montenegro piece?”

I nodded. “Need to talk to Ms. Cora. Urgent.”

“She’s in her office. But heads-up—she’s not in her best mood.”

When was she ever?

Inside the editor’s office, Ms. Cora was hunched over her monitor, scanning line edits with the sharp precision of someone who’d seen too many lies printed as truth. “Sit,” she said without looking up. “What do you have for me?”

I slid my flash drive across her desk. “Something from San Pascual. I think you’ll want to hear this.”

Finally, she looked at me. “Go on.”

I plugged in the drive, opened the file, and pressed play. The old woman’s interview played first, calm, and slow—ordinary background noise, the faint whir of the construction site. Then came the first click.

Ms. Cora leaned closer, frowning. “That’s not equipment.”

“Exactly,” I said. “It’s like a camera shutter and there’s more.”

I scrubbed the timeline to the second marker and isolated the faint hum behind it. With a few clicks, I boosted the volume and filtered the frequency.

A muffled voice emerged—barely audible, but there. Male, controlled, and almost rehearsed.

“…board… minutes… Monteneg—”

Then static. Ms. Cora’s eyes narrowed. “Play that again.”

I did. Louder this time.

“…board… minutes… Monteneg—”

“It’s him,” I whispered before I even realized I’d said it.

Ms. Cora turned to me. “Who?”

“Theodore Zayne Montenegro.”

For a moment, she said nothing. The newsroom noise outside seemed to fade, replaced only by the steady hum of the old air conditioner.

“Andra,” she said finally, her voice firm, “do you have confirmation?”

“Not yet. But the tone, the cadence, matches the public recordings from the press conference. I’ve been listening to his voice for days while reviewing footage.”

“That’s not enough,” she said flatly. “We need verifiable proof before we even think of running this.”

“I know,” I replied. “But that means he—or someone close to him—was there during the San Pascual meeting. Off record. Possibly covering tracks.”

Ms. Cora sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Do you have any idea what you’re implying?”

“That the Montenegro Empire is funding projects through shell fronts. That San Pascual is one of them.”

Her gaze sharpened. “And you’re ready to stake your name on that?”

I paused. The weight of her words hung heavy between us.

“Yes.”

She studied me for a long time, then finally said, “Alright. Bring in the tech team. We’ll clean the audio further. If it’s really Theodore Zayne Montenegro’s voice, we’ll know soon enough.”

Two hours later, the investigation lab on the third floor was filled with the soft glow of screens and the hum of servers. Miguel from the IT Department sat in front of a waveform monitor, headphones around his neck, typing rapidly.

“Enhancement done,” he said. “Filtering out background noise… adjusting compression… here.”

He hit play. This time, the voice came through clearer.

“…board minutes… must not leak… handle it quietly…”

The last two words hit like a punch.

Ms. Cora’s eyes widened slightly, then flicked to me. “Handle it quietly.”

“That sounds like an instruction,” Miguel said, spinning his chair around. “To someone. Probably an assistant or a partner.”

Ms. Cora folded her arms. “If that’s real, then your story just got dangerous, Andra.”

“Then I’m getting close,” I said quietly.

She gave me a long look, half pride, half worry. “You always did have a death wish for the truth.”

“Just a passion,” I corrected, managing a small smile.

“Passion gets reporters killed.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Back at my desk, I plugged in my headphones and listened to the cleaned recording again, every syllable sharp now—

“…board minutes… must not leak… handle it quietly…”

My heartbeat matched the rhythm of the words.

Somewhere out there, someone wanted this buried. And whoever that voice belonged to, he wasn’t just powerful—he was protected. But I was already in too deep to stop.

If the Montenegros thought silence could save them, they’d underestimated me.

The newsroom felt heavier that afternoon. Not chaotic—just quiet. A kind of silence that meant everyone knew something was brewing.

My monitor glowed with the audio waveform of the file we’d just isolated—every spike, every second of Zayne Montenegro’s voice during the press conference. Beside me, Leo hunched forward, squinting at the spectrum analyzer like it was a map to buried treasure.

“See this?” he said, pointing at a faint echo underneath the main track. “It’s not feedback. May human frequency dito, around two meters away from the mic.”

“Someone speaking?” I asked, leaning closer.

He nodded. “Muffled, pero may cadence. Sounds like someone giving instructions habang nagsasalita si Mr. Montenegro.”

I felt a small chill run through me. “From the same stage?”

“Posible,” he murmured. “Or a connected line, an internal feed, maybe from the board side.”

I stared at the screen, pulse steady but heavy. “Play it again. From the 00:31:08 mark.”

He replayed it. The main voice—Zayne’s—echoed smooth and confident

“We believe in sustainable progress, inclusive growth...”

Then underneath it, faint but distinct— “...move the file before—” The rest cut off under applause.

I looked up sharply. “Rewind that.”

Leo slowed the speed, cleaned the noise, and boosted the gain just enough to make the syllables clearer. The whisper had a low timbre, firm and deliberate. Male.

“‘Move the file before…’ something,” Leo said. “Then gone.”

The hairs at the back of my neck stood up. “You think this was during the board meeting briefing?”

He exhaled slowly. “Could be. Pero kung galing sa board feed, hindi dapat maririnig sa press mic. Unless—”

“Unless the system was cross-linked,” I finished.

We exchanged a look. It wasn’t just a tech glitch. Someone close to Montenegro had been talking during that speech, and the word file didn’t sound like a coincidence.

I grabbed my notes. “Can you isolate that voice pattern? I want to cross-check it with the audio clips from their last year’s internal conference.”

Leo frowned. “Do you have those?”

“Confidential source,” I said, keeping my tone neutral. “Don’t ask names.”

He didn’t push. “Okay, give me a few hours.”

I nodded. “Send me whatever you find before six.”

As I turned away, the weight of responsibility pressed harder against my ribs. This wasn’t just about one corrupt project anymore—it was about a network. A voice. A trail.

I headed toward the editorial glass room, where Mr. Valerio—our chief editor—was already half-buried under print layouts. He looked up as I entered.

“Ms. Enriquez. Sit.”

I closed the door quietly. “Sir, we found something unusual in the audio.”

He motioned for me to continue.

“It’s faint, pero may secondary voice sa backdrop ng press feed. Possibly from the board line.”

Mr. Valerio’s brows furrowed. “You verified the integrity?”

“Yes, sir. No edits. Raw feed from our recorder.”

He drummed his fingers on the desk. “Keep that file offline. I don’t want it on the public server yet.”

“Understood.”

“Andra,” he added, his tone lowering. “This story’s already sensitive. The Montenegros have lawyers watching every word printed about them. You need to stay clean—no leaks, no assumptions. If you move forward, I’ll assign security protocols. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

He studied me for a moment longer. “You’re steady. That’s good. But remember—truth doesn’t mean safety.”

I met his gaze evenly. “Neither does silence.”

Something flickered in his expression: an approval, maybe pride. “Go.”

When I stepped out, the rest of the staff looked up for a second, then quickly returned to their screens. The air buzzed faintly with whispered theories, the kind that float around when everyone senses a storm but pretends not to.

By the time I reached the elevator, the evening rush was starting. My bag felt heavier than usual—recorder, notes, and one flash drive now encrypted with Leo’s audio patch.

In the elevator mirror, I caught my own reflection—composed and calm. But my pulse betrayed me, a steady reminder that calm didn’t mean safe.

The elevator chimed open to the lobby. Security guards were stationed at both exits—new faces, wearing black polos without visible IDs.

“Ma’am Enriquez,” one greeted. His voice was polite but detached.

I nodded back. “Good evening.”

As I walked past the glass doors, I caught a flicker in the reflection—a figure standing near the far column by the street, pretending to check his phone. Gray jacket. Baseball cap.

For a moment, I thought my eyes were playing tricks. But when I turned slightly, the reflection shifted too—synchronized, watching.

I didn’t stop walking. Journalists are trained not to flinch at shadows. Still, my hand tightened around the strap of my bag.

Outside, Manila’s late rush shimmered with the glow of headlights and rain-misted asphalt. I hailed a cab and stepped inside, forcing my heartbeat to slow.

The cab pulled into traffic. I looked back once more. The man in gray was gone. But my gut knew better.

He wasn’t gone. Just waiting for the next move.

The city blurred past the cab window—taillights bleeding red through the drizzle, billboards flickering above EDSA like impatient ghosts. I tried to steady my breathing. Professional detachment, I reminded myself. Observe, don’t react.

But the reflection on the glass wouldn’t leave me alone. That gray jacket, that stillness.

My phone vibrated against my palm. Unknown number. Twice. Then silence. I let it ring out.

When I reached my apartment, I checked the hallway before unlocking the door. Same yellow light, same peeling wallpaper. Everything was ordinary, and yet the air felt charged—like static before a storm.

Inside, I dropped my bag on the counter and turned on only one lamp. The dim glow made the room feel safer—less exposed. I set my recorder on the table beside the printed transcript of Zayne’s speech.

Then the phone rang again. Same unknown number.

For a split second, I considered ignoring it. But journalists don’t ignore calls; they trace them.

“Ms. Enriquez,” I answered, voice steady.

At first, nothing—just faint breathing on the other end. Then a low, distorted male voice filtered through the static.

“You’re asking questions that don’t concern you.”

Every muscle in my spine tightened. “Who is this?”

“Walk away from the Montenegro file.”

My pulse thudded in my ears. “If you’re calling to scare me, you’ll have to try harder.”

A short chuckle, mechanical, filtered like it had been run through a voice modulator.

“Brave. Or foolish. Either way, stop digging. People who dig too deep don’t always get the chance to publish.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Call it advice.”

Then the line clicked dead. I stood there, phone still at my ear, the faint hum of the disconnected line lingering.

Advice. The word echoed like a bruise. I replayed the call, but the number was already untraceable—masked ID, rerouted through an overseas relay. Professional work.

Setting the phone down, I opened my laptop, logged into our secure newsroom network, and typed a short report into the confidential thread:

Incident Log #54 – Anonymous Call

Time: 21:47 PHT

Content: Threat/Warning

Reference: Montenegro File

Status: Active monitoring recommended.

Protocol. Always protocol. But as I hit send, a shiver still crawled up my arms.

I forced myself to review Leo’s email, the enhanced audio sample now labeled secondary-voice-pattern-ID-unknown.wav.

Headphones on, volume low. The whisper played again—

“…move the file before…”

Only this time, beneath that faint line, I heard something new—barely audible, but there. A tiny click. Like a door latch.

My eyes snapped open. The recording hadn’t captured a door in the hall; it had caught one being opened on stage.

Someone had been there.

I leaned back, closing my eyes. For the first time that day, my calm cracked—not in panic, but in the quiet realization that this story was larger than a corporate scandal. It was systemic, dangerous, and alive.

Outside, thunder rolled far over the skyline, a sound like paper tearing.

I typed a single note in my logbook:

If they’re calling, it means I’m close.

Then I shut the notebook, turned off the lamp, and let the city’s faint hum seep through the window.

Tomorrow, I’ll bring the call to Mr. Valerio. Tomorrow, we’ll trace the signal. Tonight, I’d stay awake because truth, once spoken, never sleeps.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚༺☆༻*ੈ✩‧₊˚